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THE 



MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD 



A TREATISE 



ON THE 

SYMBOLISM AKD MYTHOLOGY 



RED RACE OF AMERICA. 



BY 

DANIEL G. BRINTON, A. M., M.D., 

MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA, OF THE NUMISMATIC 
AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA J CORRESPONDING MEMBER 
OF THE AMERICAN ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY J AUTHOR OF "NOTES 
ON THE FLORIDIAN PENINSULA," ETC. 





NEW YORK: 
LEYPOLDT & HOLT. 
1868. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 

DANIEL G. BRINTON, 

in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States in 
and for the Eastern District of the State of Pennsylvania. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
COLLINS, PKIMTER, 705 JAYNE STREET. 



V 



PREFACE. 



I have written this work more for the thoughtful 
general reader than the antiquary. It is a study of an 
obscure portion of the intellectual history of our species 
as exemplified in one of its varieties. 

What are man's earliest ideas of a soul and a God, 
and of his own origin and destiny ? Why do we find 
certain myths, such as of a creation, a flood, an after- 
world ; certain symbols, as the bird, the serpent, the 
cross ; certain numbers, as the three, the four, the seven — 
intimately associated with these ideas by every race ? 
What are the la^s of growth of natural religions ? How 
do they acquire such an influence, and is this influence 
for good or evil? Such are some of the universally 
interesting questions which I attempt to solve by an 
analysis of the simple faiths of a savage race. 

If in so doing I succeed in investing with a more 
general interest the fruitful theme of American ethno- 
logy, my objects will have been accomplished. 

Philadelphia, 
April, 1868. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS OP THE RED RACE. 

PAGE 

Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, 
modified by peculiarities of race and nation. — The peculiarities of 
the red race : 1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Na- 
tive modes of writing by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and 
phonetic signs. These various methods compared in their influ- 
ence on the intellectual faculties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the 
history of the world. 3. Beyond all others, a hunting race. — 
Principal linguistic subdivisions : 1. Tbe Eskimos. 2. The Atha- 
pascas. 3. The Algonkins and Iroquois. 4. The Apalachian 
tribes. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. The Mayas. 8. The 
Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Caribs and Tupis. 11. The 
Arattcanians. — General course of migrations. — Age of man in 
America. — Unity of type in the red race ..... 1 

CHAPTER II. 

THE IDEA OF GOD. 

An intuition common to the species. — Words expressing it in Ameri- 
can languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or of 
life manifested by breath. — Examples. — No conscious monotheism, 
and but little idea of immateriality discoverable. — Still less any 
moral dualism of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad 
Spirit being alike terms and notions of foreign importation . . 43 



vi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SACKED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS. 

PAGE 

The number Four sacred in all American religions, and the key to 
their symbolism. — Derived from the Cardinal Points. — Appears 
constantly in government, arts, rites, and myths. — The Cardinal 
Points identified with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four 
ancestors of the human race, and the four celestial rivers watering 
the terrestrial Paradise. — Associations grouped around each Car- 
dinal Point. — From the number four was derived the symbolic 
value of the number Forty and the Sign of the Cross . . .66 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE SYMBOLS OP THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 

Relations of man to the lower animals. — Two of these, the Bird and 
the Serpent, chosen as symbols beyond all others. — The Bird 
throughout America the symbol of the Clouds and Winds.— Mean- 
ing of certain species. — The symbolic meaning of the Serpent de- 
rived from its mode of locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its 
power of charming. — Usually the symbol of the lightning and the 
Waters. — The Rattlesnake the symbolic species in America. — The 
war charm. — The Cross of Palenque. — The god of riches. — Both 
symbols devoid of moral significance 99 

CHAPTER V. 

THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER-STORM. 

Water the oldest element. — Its use in purification. — Holy water. — The 
Rite of Baptism. — The Water of Life. — Its symbols. — The Vase. — 
The Moon. — The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, but 
also of sickness, night, and pain. — Often represented by a dog. — 
Fire worship under the form of Sun worship. — The perpetual fire. — 
The new fire. — Burning the dead. — A worship of the passions, but 
no sexual dualism in myths, nor any phallic worship in America. — 
Synthesis of the worship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in the 
Thunder-storm, personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici, 
Heno, Tlaloc, Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of them triune 122 



THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD. 



CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, modified 
by peculiarities of race and nation. — The peculiarities of the red race : 
1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Native modes of writing 
by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and phonetic signs. These 
various methods compared in their influence on the intellectual facul- 
ties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the history of the world. 3. Beyond 
all others, a hunting race. — Principal linguistic subdivisions : 1. The 
Eskimos. 2. The Athapascas. 3. The Algonkins and Iroquois. 4. 
The Apalachian tribes. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. The 
Mayas. 8. The Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Caribs and 
Tupis. 11. The Araucanians. — General course of migrations. — Age of 
man in America. — Unity of type in the red race. 

HEN Paul, at the request of the philosophers of 
Athens, explained to them his views on divine 
things, he asserted, among other startling novelties, 
that 11 God has made of one blood all nations of the 
earth, that thej should seek the Lord, if haply they 
might feel after him and find him, though he is not 
far from every one of us." 

Here was an orator advocating the unity of the 
human species, affirming that the chief end of man is 
to develop an innate idea of God, and that all reli- 
gions, except the one he preached, were examples of 
1 




2 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE 

more or less unsuccessful attempts to do so. No 
wonder the Athenians, who acknowledged no kinship 
to barbarians, who looked dubiously at the doctrine 
of innate ideas, and were divided in opinion as to 
whether their mythology was a shrewd device of le- 
gislators to keep the populace in subjection, a veiled 
natural philosophy, or the celestial reflex of their 
own history, mocked at such a babbler and went 
their ways. The generations of philosophers that 
followed them partook of their doubts and approved 
their opinions, quite clown to our own times. But 
now, after weighing the question maturely, we are 
compelled to admit that the Apostle was tioi so wide 
of the mark after all — that, in fact, the latest and 
best authorities, with no bias in his favor, support 
his position and may almost be said to paraphrase his 
words. For according to a writer who ranks second 
to none in the science of ethnology, the severest and 
most recent investigations show that "not only do 
acknowledged facts permit the assumption of the 
unity of the human -species, but this opinion is at- 
tended with fewer discrepancies, and has greater 
inner consistency than the opposite one of specific 
diversity." 1 And as to the religions of heathendom, 
the view of Saint Paul is but expressed with a more 
poetic turn by a distinguished living author when 
he calls them " not fables, but truths, though clothed 
in a garb woven by fancy, wherein the web is the 
notion of God, the ideal of reason in the soul of man, 
the thought of the Infinite." 2 

1 Waitz, Anthropologic der Naturvoelker, i. p. 256. 

2 Carriere, Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwicke- 
lung, i. p. 66. 



ABORIGINAL RELIGIONS OF AMERICA. 3 

Inspiration and science unite therefore to bid us 
dismiss the effete prejudice that natural religions 
either arise as the ancient philosophies taught, or 
that they are, as the Dark Ages imagined, subtle nets 
of the devil spread to catch human souls. They are 
rather the unaided attempts of man to find out God ; 
they are the efforts of the reason struggling to define 
the infinite ; they are the expressions of that " yearn- 
ing after the gods" which the earliest of poets dis- 
cerned in the hearts of all men. Studied in this 
sense they are rich in teachings. Would we estimate 
the intellectual and aesthetic culture of a people, 
would we generalize the laws of progress, would we 
appreciate the sublimity of Christianity, and read the 
seals of its authenticity : the natural conceptions of 
divinity reveal them. No mythologies are so crude, 
therefore, none so barbarous, but deserve the atten- 
tion of the philosophic mind, for they are never the 
empty fictions of an idle fancy, but rather the utter- 
ances, however inarticulate, of an immortal and ubi- 
quitous intuition. 

These considerations embolden me to approach 
with some confidence even the aboriginal religions 
of America, so often stigmatized as incoherent feti- 
chisms, so barren, it has been said, in grand or beau- 
tiful creations. The task bristles with difficulties. 
Carelessness, prepossessions, and ignorance have dis- 
figured them with false colors and foreign additions 
without number. The first maxim, therefore, must 
be to sift and scrutinize authorities, and to reject 
whatever betrays the plastic hand of the European. 
For the religions developed by the red race, not those 
mixed creeds learned from foreign invaders, are to be 



4 - GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



midable undertaking of reducing the authentic mate- 
rials thus obtained to system and order, and this not 
by any preconceived theory of what they ought to 
conform to, but learning from them the very laws 
of religious growth they illustrate. The historian 
traces the birth of arts, science, and government to 
man's dependence on nature and his fellows for the 
means of self-preservation. Not that man receives 
these endowments from without, but that the stern 
step-mother, Nature, forces him by threats and stripes 
to develop his own inherent faculties. So with 
religion. The idea of God does not, and cannot, pro- 
ceed from the external world, but, nevertheless, it 
finds its historical origin also in the desperate struggle 
for life, in the satisfaction of the animal wants and 
passions, in those vulgar aims and motives which 
possessed the mind of the primitive man to the ex- 
clusion of everything else. 

There is an ever present embarrassment in such in- 
quiries. In dealing with these matters beyond the 
cognizance of the senses, the mind is forced to ex- 
press its meaning in terms transferred from sensuous 
perceptions, or under symbols borrowed from the 
material world. These transfers must be understood, 
these symbols explained, before the real meaning of 
a myth can be reached. He who fails to guess the 
riddle of the sphynx, need not hope to gain admit- 
tance to the shrine. With delicate ear the faint 
whispers of thought must be apprehended which 
prompt the intellect when it names the immaterial 
from the material ; when it chooses from the infinity 
of visible forms those meet to shadow forth Divinity. 




Then will remain the for- 



THE MEANING OF MYTHS. 



5 



Two lights will guide us on this venturesome path. 
Mindful of the watchword of inductive science, to 
proceed from the known to the unknown, the inquiry 
will be put whether the aboriginal languages of Ame- 
rica employ the same tropes to express such ideas 
as deity, spirit, and soul, as our own and kindred 
tongues. If the answer prove affirmative, then not 
only have we gained a firm foothold whence to sur- 
vey the whole edifice of their mythology ; but from 
an unexpected quarter arises evidence of the unity of 
our species far weightier than any mere anatomy can 
furnish, evidence from the living soul, not from the 
dead body. True that the science of American lin • 
guistics is still in its infancy, and that a proper hand- 
ling of the materials it even now offers involves a 
more critical acquaintance with its innumerable 
dialects than I possess ; but though the gleaning 
be sparse, it is enough that I break the ground. 
Secondly, religious rites are living commentaries on 
religious beliefs. At first they are rude representa- 
tions of the supposed doings of the gods. The Indian 
rain-maker mounts to the roof of his hut, and rat- 
tling vigorously a dry gourd containing pebbles, to 
represent the thunder, scatters water through a reed 
on the ground beneath, as he imagines up above in 
the clouds do the spirits of the storm. Every spring 
in ancient Delphi was repeated in scenic ceremony 
the combat of Apollo and the Dragon, the victory of 
the lord of bright summer over the demon of chill- 
ing winter. Thus do forms and ceremonies reveal 
the meaning of mythology, and the origin of its 
fables. 

Let it not be objected that this proposed method of 



6 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



analysis assumes that religions begin and develop 
under the operation of inflexible laws. The soul is 
shackled by no fatalism. Formative influences there 
are, deep seated, far reaching, escaped by few, but 
like those which of yore astrologers imputed to the 
stars, they potently incline, they do not coerce. 
Language, pursuits, habits, geographical position, and 
those subtle mental traits which make up the cha- 
racteristics of races and nations, all tend to deflect 
from a given standard the religious life of the indi- 
vidual and the mass. It is essential to give these due 
weight, and a necessary preface therefore to an analy- 
sis of the myths of the red race is an enumeration of 
its peculiarities, and of its chief families as they were 
located when first known to the historian. 

Of all such modifying circumstances none has 
greater importance than the means of expressing and 
transmitting intellectual action. The spoken and the 
written language of a nation reveal to us its prevail- 
ing, and to a certain degree its unavoidable mode of 
thought. Here the red race offers a striking pheno- 
menon. There is no other trait that binds together 
its scattered clans, and brands them as members of 
one great family, so unmistakably as this of lan- 
guage. From the Frozen Ocean to the Land of Fire, 
without a single exception, the native dialects, though 
varying infinitely in words, are marked by a pecu- 
liarity in construction which is found nowhere else 
on the globe, 1 and which is so foreign to the genius of 

1 It is said indeed that the Yebus, a people on the west coast of 
Africa, speak a polysynthetic language, and per contra, that the 
Otomis of Mexico have a monosyllabic one like the Chinese. 
Max Mueller goes further, and asserts that what is called the pro- 



THE NATIVE LANGUAGES. 



our tongue that it is no easy matter to explain it. It is 
called by philologists the polysynthetic construction. 
What it is will best appear by comparison. Every 
grammatical sentence conveys one leading idea with 
its modifications and relations. Now a Chinese would 
express, these latter by unconnected syllables, the pre- 
cise bearing of which could only be guessed by their 
position ; a Greek or a German would use independ- 
ent words, indicating their relations by terminations 
meaningless in themselves; an Englishman gains the 
same end chiefly by the use of particles and by posi- 
tion. Yery different from all these is the spirit of a 
polysynthetic language. It seeks to unite in the 
most intimate manner all relations and modifications 
with the leading idea, to merge one in the other by 
altering the forms of the words themselves and weld- 
ing them together, to express the whole in one 
word, and to banish any conception except as it arises 
in relation to others. Thus in many American 
tongues there is, in fact, no word for father, mother, 
brother, but only for my, your, his father, etc. This 
has advantages and defects. It offers marvellous 
facilities for defining the perceptions of the senses 
with the utmost accuracy, but regarding everything 
in the concrete, it is unfriendly to the nobler labors 
of the mind, to abstraction and generalization. In 
the numberless changes of these lansruao'es, their be- 

cess of agglutination in the Turanian languages is the same as 
what has been named polysynthesis in America. This is not to 
be conceded. In the former the root is unchangeable, the forma- 
tive elements follow it, and prefixes are not used ; in the latter 
prefixes are common, and the formative elements are blended 
with the root, both undergoing changes of structure. Yery im- 
portant differences. 



8 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE 



wildering flexibility, their variable forms, and their 
rapid deterioration, they seem to betray a lack of in- 
dividuality, and to resemble the vague and tumultu- 
ous history of the tribes who employ them. They 
exhibit an almost incredible laxity. It is nothing 
uncommon for the two sexes to use different names 
for the same object, and for nobles and vulgar, priests 
and people, the old and the young, nay, even the 
married and single, to observe what seem to the 
European ear quite different modes of expression. 
Families and whole villages suddenly drop words and 
manufacture others in their places out of mere caprice 
or superstition, and a few years 1 separation suffices to 
produce a marked dialectic difference. In their copi- 
ous forms and facility of reproduction they remind 
one of those anomalous animals, in whom, when a 
limb is lopped, it rapidly grows again, or even if cut 
in pieces, each part will enter on a separate life quite 
unconcerned about his fellows. But as the naturalist 
is far from regarding this superabundant vitality as 
a characteristic of a higher type, so the philologist 
justly assigns these tongues a low position in the 
linguistic scale. Fidelity to form, here as every- 
where, is the test of excellence. At the outset, we 
divine there can be nothing very subtle in the mytho- 
logies of nations with such languages. Much there 
must be that will be obscure, much that is vague, an 
exhausting variety in repetition, and a strong ten- 
dency to lose the idea in the symbol. 

What definiteness of outline might be preserved 
must depend on the care with which the old stories 
of the gods were passed from one person and one 
generation to another. The fundamental myths of a 



PICTURE WRITING. 



9 



race have a surprising tenacity of life. How many 
centuries had elapsed between the period the Grer- 
manic hordes left their ancient homes in Central Asia, 
and when Tacitus listened to their wild songs on the 
banks of the Rhine ? Yet we know that through 
those unnumbered ages of barbarism and aimless 
roving, these songs, " their only sort of history or 
annals," says the historian, had preserved intact the 
story of Mannus, the Sanscrit Manu, and his three 
sons, and of the great god Tuisco, the Indian Dyu. 1 
So much the more do all means invented by the red 
race to record and transmit thought merit our care- 
ful attention. Few and feeble they seem to us, mainly 
shifts to aid the memory. Of some such, perhaps, 
not a single tribe was destitute. The tattoo marks on 
the warrior's breast, his string of gristly scalps, the 
bear's claws around his neck, were not only trophies 
of his prowess, but records of his exploits, and to 
the contemplative mind contain the rudiments of the 
beneficent art of letters. Did he draw in rude out- 
line on his skin tent figures of men transfixed with 
arrows as many as he had slain enemies, his education 
was rapidly advancing. He had mastered the ele- 
ments of picture writing, beyond which hardly the 
wisest of his race progressed. Figures of the natural 
objects connected by symbols having fixed meanings 
make up the whole of this art. The relative fre- 
quency of the latter marks its advancement from a 
merely figurative to an ideographic notation. On 
what principle of mental association a given sign was 
adopted to express a certain idea, why, for instance, 

1 Grimm, Geschichte der Deutschen Spracfie, p. 571. 



10 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



on the Chipeway scrolls a circle means spirits, and a 
horned snake life, it is often hard to guess. The 
difficulty grows when we find that to the initiated the 
same sign calls up quite different ideas, as the subject 
of the writer varies from war to love, or from the 
chase to religion. The connection is generally be- 
yond the power of divination, and the key to ideo- 
graphic writing once lost can never be recovered. 

The number of such arbitrary characters in the 
Chipeway notation is said to be over two hundred, 
but if the distinction between a figure and a symbol 
were rigidly applied, it would be much reduced. This 
kind of writing, if it deserves the name, was common 
throughout the continent, and many specimens of it, 
scratched on the plane surfaces of stones, have been 
preserved to the present day. Such is the once cele- 
brated inscription on Dighton Eock, Massachusetts, 
long supposed to be a record of the Northmen of 
Vinland ; such those that mark the faces of the cliffs 
which overhang the waters of the Orinoco, and those 
that in Oregon, Peru, and La Plata have been the 
subject of much curious speculation. They are alike 
the mute and meaningless epitaphs of vanished gene- 
rations. 

I would it could be said that in favorable contrast 
to our ignorance of these inscriptions is our compre- 
hension of the highly wrought pictography of the 
Aztecs. No nation ever reduced it more to a system. 
It was in constant use in the daily transactions of life. 
They manufactured for writing purposes a thick, 
coarse paper from the leaves of the agave plant by a 
process of maceration and pressure. An Aztec book 
closely resembles one of our quarto volumes. It is 



PIIOXETIC CHARACTERS. 



11 



made of a single sheet, twelve to fifteen inches wide, 
and often sixty or seventy feet long, and is not rolled, 
but folded either in squares or zigzags in such a man- 
ner that on opening it there are two pages exposed to 
view. Thin wooden boards are fastened to each of 
the outer leaves, so that the whole presents as neat an 
appearance, remarks Peter Martyr, as if it had come 
from the shop of a skilful bookbinder. They also 
covered buildings, tapestries, and scrolls of parchment 
with these devices, and for trifling transactions were 
familiar with the use of slates of soft stone from which 
the figures could readily be erased with water. 1 
What is still more astonishing, there is reason to 
believe, in some instances, their figures were not 
painted, but actually printed with movable blocks of 
wood on which the symbols were carved in relief, 
though this was probably confined to those intended 
for ornament only. 

In these records we discern something higher than 
a mere symbolic notation. They contain the germ of 
a phonetic alphabet, and represent sounds of spoken 
language. The symbol is often not connected with 
the idea but with the word. The mode in which 
this is done corresponds precisely to that of the rebus. 
It is a simple method, readily suggesting itself. In 
the middle ages it was much in vogue in Europe for 
the same purpose for which it was chiefly employed 
in Mexico at the same time — the writing of proper 
names. For example, the English family Bolton was 
known in heraldry by a tun transfixed by a holt. 
Precisely so the Mexican emperor Ixcoatl is mentioned 

1 Peter Martyr, Be Insulis nuper Bepertis, p. 354 : Colon. 1574. 



12 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

in the Aztec manuscripts under the figure of a serpent 
coall, pierced by obsidian knives ixtli, and Moqnauh- 
zoma by a mouse-trap montli, an eagle quauhili, a 
lancet zo, and a hand maitl. As a syllable could be 
expressed by any object whose name commenced with 
it, as few words can be given the form of a rebus 
without some change, as the figures sometimes repre- 
sent their full phonetic value, sometimes only that of 
their initial sound, and as universally the attention 
of the artist was directed less to the sound than to 
the idea, the didactic painting of the Mexicans, what- 
ever it might have been to them, is a sealed book to 
us, and must remain so in great part. Moreover, it is 
entirely undetermined whether it should be read from 
the first to the last page, or vice versa, whether from 
right to left or from left to right, from bottom to top 
or from top to bottom, around the edges of the page 
toward the centre, or each line in the opposite direc- 
tion from the preceding one. There are good autho- 
rities for all these methods, 1 and they may all be cor- 
rect, for there is no evidence that any fixed rule had 
been laid down' in this respect. 

Immense masses of such documents were stored in 
the imperial archives of ancient Mexico. Torquemada 
asserts that five cities alone yielded to the Spanish 
governor on one requisition no less than sixteen 
thousand volumes or scrolls! Every leaf was de- 
stroyed. Indeed, so thorough and wholesale was the 
destruction of these memorials now so precious in 
our eyes that hardly enough remain to whet the wits 
of antiquaries. In the libraries of Paris, Dresden, 

1 They may be found in Waitz, Anthrop. dev NaturvoelJcer, 
iv. p. 173. 



THE MAYA ALPHABET. 



13 



Pestli, and the -Vatican are, however, a sufficient num- 
ber to make us despair of deciphering them had we 
for comparison all which the Spaniards destroyed. 

Beyond all others the Mayas, resident on the penin- 
sula of Yucatan, would seem to have approached 
nearest a true phonetic system. They had a regular 
and well understood alphabet of twenty seven elemen- 
tary sounds, the letters of which are totally different 
from those of any other nation, and evidently origi- 
nal with themselves. But besides these they used a 
large number of purely conventional symbols, and 
moreover were accustomed constantly to employ the 
ancient pictographic method in addition as a sort of 
commentary on the sound represented. What is 
more curious, if the obscure explanation of an ancient 
writer can be depended upon, they not only aimed to 
employ an alphabet after the manner of ours, but to 
express the sound absolutely like our phonographic 
signs do. 1 With the aid of this alphabet, which has 
fortunately been preserved, we are enabled to spell 
out a few words on the Yucatecan manuscripts and 
facades, but thus far with no positive results. The 
loss of the ancient pronunciation is especially in the 
way of such studies. 

In South America, also, there is said to- have been 
a nation who cultivated the art of picture writing, 
the Panos, on the river Ucayale. A missionary, 
Narcisso Gilbar by name, once penetrated, with great 
toil, to one of their villages. As he approached he 

1 The only authority is Diego de Landa, Relation de las Cosas cle 
Yucatan, ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 318. The explanation is 
extremely obscure in the original. I have given it in the only 
sense in which the author's words seern to have any meaning. 



14 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

beheld a venerable man seated under the shade of a 
palm tree, with a great book open before him from 
which he was reading to an attentive circle of audi- 
tors the wars and wanderings of their forefathers. 
With difficulty the priest got a sight of the precious 
volume, and found it covered with figures and signs 
in marvellous symmetry and order. 1 No wonder 
such a romantic scene left a deep impression on his 
memory. 

The Peruvians adopted a totally different and 
unique system of records, that by means of the quipu. 
This was a base cord, the thickness of the finger, of 
any required length, to which were attached numerous 
small strings of different colors, lengths, and textures, 
variously knotted and twisted one with another. 
Each of these peculiarities represented a certain 
number, a quality, quantity, or other idea, but what, 
not the most fluent quipu reader could tell unless he 
was acquainted with the general topic treated of. 
Therefore, whenever news was sent in this manner a 
person accompanied the bearer to serve as verbal 
commentator, and to prevent confusion the quipus 
relating to the various departments of knowledge 
were placed in separate storehouses, one for war, an- 
other for taxes, a third for history, and so forth. On 
what principle of mnemotechnics the ideas were con- 
nected with the knots and colors we are totally in the 
dark; it has even been doubted whether they had 
any application beyond the art of numeration. 2 Each 
combination had, however, a fixed ideographic value 

1 Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 72. 

2 Desjardins, Le Perou avant la Conquete Espagnole, p. 122 : 
Paris, 1858. 



THE QUI PIT AND WAMPUM. 



15 



in a certain branch of knowledge, and thus the quipu 
differed essentially from the Catholic rosary, the Jew- 
ish phylactery, or the knotted strings of the natives of 
North America and Siberia, to all of which it has at 
times been compared. 

The wampum used by the tribes of the north At- 
lantic coast was, in many respects, analogous to the 
quipu. In early times it was composed chiefly of bits 
of wood of equal size, but different colors. These 
were hung -on strings which were woven into belts 
and bands, the hues, shapes, sizes, and combinations 
of the strings hinting their general significance. 
Thus the lighter shades were invariable harbingers 
of peaceful or pleasant tidings, while the darker por- 
tended war and danger. The substitution of beads 
or shells in place of wood, and the custom of em- 
broidering figures in the belts were, probably, intro- 
duced by European influence. 

Besides these, various simpler mnemonic aids were 
employed, such as parcels of reeds of different 
lengths, notched sticks, knots in cords, strings of 
pebbles or fruit-stones, circular pieces of wood or 
slabs pierced with different figures which the Eng- 
lish liken to " cony holes," and at a victory, a treaty, 
or the founding of a village, sometimes a pillar or 
heap of stones was erected equalling in number the 
persons present at the occasion, or the number of the 
fallen. 

This exhausts the list. All other methods of writ- 
ing, the hieroglyphs of the Micmacs of Acadia, the 
syllabic alphabet of the Cherokees, the pretended 
traces of Greek, Hebrew, and Celtiberic letters which 
have from time to time been brought to the notice of 



16 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



the public, have been without exception the products 
of foreign civilization or simply frauds. Not a single 
coin, inscription, or memorial of any kind whatever, 
has been found on the American continent showing 
the existence, either generally or locally, of any other 
means of writing than those specified. 

Poor as these substitutes for a developed phonetic 
system seem to us, they were of great value to the 
uncultivated man. In his legends their introduction 
is usually ascribed to some heaven-sent benefactor, 
the antique characters were jealously adhered to, and 
the pictured scroll of bark, the quipu ball, the belt 
of wampum, were treasured with provident care, and 
their import minutely expounded to the most intelli- 
gent of the rising generation. In all communities 
beyond the stage of barbarism a class of persons was 
set apart for this duty and no other. Thus, for ex- 
ample, in ancient Peru, one college of priests styled 
amauta, learned, had exclusive charge over the quipus 
containing the mythological and historical traditions; 
a second, the haravecs, singers, devoted themselves to 
those referring to the national ballads and dramas ; 
while a third occupied their time solely with those 
pertaining to civil affairs. Such custodians preserved 
and prepared the archives, learned by heart with their 
aid what their fathers knew, and m some countries, 
as, for instance, among the Panos mentioned above, 
and the Quiches of Guatemala, 1 repeated portions of 
them at times to the assembled populace. It has 
even been averred by one of their converted chiefs, 
long a missionary to his fellows, that the Chipeways 

1 An instance is given by Ximenes, Origen de los Indios de 
Guatemala, p. 186 : Vienna, 1856. 



VALUE OF THE NATIVE RECORDS. 



n 



of Lake Superior have a college composed of ten 
"of the wisest and most venerable of their nation," 
who have in charge the pictured records containing 
the ancient history of their tribe. These are kept 
in an underground chamber, and are disinterred every 
fifteen years by the assembled guardians, that they 
may be repaired, and their contents explained to new 
members of the society. 1 

In spite of these precautions, the end seems to have 
been very imperfectly attained. The most distin- 
guished characters, the weightiest events in national 
history faded into oblivion after a few generations. 
The time and circumstances of the formation of the 
league of the Five Nations, the dispersion of the 
mound builders of the Ohio valley in the fifteenth 
century, the chronicles of Peru or Mexico beyond a 
century or two anterior to the conquest, are preserved 
in such a vague and contradictory manner that they 
have slight value as history. Their mythology fared 
somewhat better, for not only was it kept fresh in 
the memory by frequent repetition ; but being itself 
founded in nature, it was constantly nourished by the 
truths which gave it birth. Nevertheless, we may 
profit by the warning to remember that their myths \ 
are myths only, and not the reflections of history or 
heroes. 

Eising from these details to a general comparison 
of the symbolic and phonetic systems in their reac- 
tions on the mind, the most obvious are their con- 
trasted effects on the faculty of memory. Letters 

1 George Copway, Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation, 
p. 130 : London, 1850. 
2 



18 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

represent elementary sounds, which are few in any 
language, while symbols stand for ideas, and they are 
numerically infinite. The transmission of knowledge 
by means of the latter is consequently attended with 
most disproportionate labor. It is almost as if we 
could quote nothing from an author unless we could 
recollect his exact words. We have a right to look 
for excellent memories where such a mode is in vogue, 
and in the present instance we are not disappointed. 
"These savages," exclaims La Hontan, " have the 
happiest memories in the world!" It was etiquette 
at their councils for each speaker to repeat verbatim 
all his predecessors had said, and the whites were 
often astonished and confused at the verbal fidelity 
with which the natives recalled the transactions of 
long past treaties. Their songs were inexhaustible. 
An instance is on record where an Indian sang two 
hundred on various subjects. 1 Such a fact reminds 
us of a beautiful expression of the elder Humboldt : 
" Man," he says, " regarded as an animal, belongs to 
one of the singing species ; but his notes are always 
associated with ideas." The youth who were edu- 
cated at the public schools of ancient Mexico — for 
that realm, so far from neglecting the cause of popu- 
lar education, established houses for gratuitous in- 
struction, and to a certain extent made the attend- 
ance upon them obligatory — learned by rote long 
orations, poems, and prayers with a facility astonish- 
ing to the conquerors, and surpassing anything they 
were accustomed to see in the universities of Old 
Spain. A phonetic system actually weakens the re- 



1 Morse, Report on the Indian Tribes, App. p. 352. 



EFFECT OF SYMBOLIC WRITING ON THE MIND. 19 

tentive powers of the mind by offering a more facile 
plan for preserving thought. " Oe que je mets stir 
papier, je remets de ma memoire" is an expression of old 
Montaigne which he could never have used had he 
employed ideographic characters. 

Memory, however, is of far less importance than a 
free activity of thought, untrammelled by forms or 
precedents, and ever alert to novel combinations of 
ideas. Give a race this and it will guide it to civil- 
ization as surely as the needle directs the ship to its 
haven. It is here that ideographic writing reveals its 
fatal inferiority. It is forever specifying, materializ- 
ing, dealing in minutiae. In the Egyptian symbolic 
alphabet there is a figure for a virgin, another for a 
married woman, for a widow without offspring, for a 
widow with one child, two children, and I know not 
in how many other circumstances, but for woman there 
is no sign. It must be so in the nature of things, for 
the symbol represents the object as it appears or is 
fancied to appear, and not as it is thought. Further- 
more, the constant learning by heart infallibly leads 
to slavish repetition and mental servility. 

A symbol when understood is independent of lan- 
guage, and is as universally current as an Arabic 
numeral. But this divorce of spoken and written 
language is of questionable advantage. It at once 
destroys all permanent improvement in a tongue 
through elegance of style, sonorous periods, or deli- 
cacy of expression, and the life of the language itself 
is weakened when its forms are left to fluctuate un- 
controlled. Written poetry, grammar, rhetoric, all 
are impossible to the student who draws his know- 
ledge from such a source. 



20 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

Finally, it has been justly observed by the younger 
Humboldt that the painful fidelity to the antique 
figures transmitted from barbarous to polished gene- 
rations is injurious to the aesthetic sense, and dulls 
the mind to the beautiful in art and nature. 

The transmission of thought by figures and symbols 
would, on the whole, therefore, foster those narrow and 
material tendencies which the genius of polysynthetic 
languages would seem calculated to produce. Its one 
redeeming trait of strengthening the memory will 
serve to explain the strange tenacity with which 
certain myths have been preserved through widely 
dispersed families, as we shall hereafter see. 

Besides this of language there are two traits in the 
history of the red man without parallel in that of any 
other variety of our species which has achieved any 
notable progress in civilization. 

The one is his isolation. Cut off time out of mind 
from the rest of the world, he never underwent those 
crossings of blood and culture which so modified and 
on the whole promoted the growth of the old world 
nationalities. In his own way he worked out his 
own destiny, and what he won was his with a more 
than ordinary right of ownership. For all those old 
dreams of the advent of the Ten Lost Tribes, of 
Buddhist priests, of Welsh princes, or of Phenician 
merchants on American soil, and there exerting a 
permanent influence, have been consigned to the dust- 
bin by every unbiased student, and when we see 
such men as Mr. Schoolcraft and the Abbe E. C. Bras- 
seur essaying to resuscitate them, we regretfully look 
upon it in the light of a literary anachronism. 

The second trait is the entire absence of the herds- 



A HUNTING RACE. 



21 



man's life with its softening associations. Through- 
out the continent there is not a single authentic in- 
stance of a pastoral tribe, not one of an animal 
raised for its milk, 1 nor for the transportation of 
persons, and very few for their flesh. It was essen- 
tially a hunting race. - The most civilized nations 
looked to the chase for their chief supply of meat, 
and the courts of Cuzco and Mexico enacted stringent 
game and forest laws, and at certain periods the 
whole population turned out for a general crusade 
against the denizens of the forest. In the most 
densely settled districts the conquerors found vast 
stretches of primitive woods. . 

If we consider the life of a hunter, pitting his skill 
and strength against the marvellous instincts and 
quick perceptions of the brute, training his senses to 
preternatural acuteness, but blunting his more ten- 
der feelings, his sole aim to shed blood and take life, 
dependent on luck for his food, exposed to depriva- 

1 Goniara states that De Ayllon found tribes on the Atlantic 
shore not far from Cape Hatteras keeping flocks of deer (ciervos) 
and from their milk making cheese (Hist, de las Indias, cap. 43). 
I attach no importance to this statement, and only mention it to 
connect it with some other curious notices of the tribe now ex- 
tinct who occupied that locality. Both De Ayllon and Lawson 
mention their very light complexions, and the latter saw many 
with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a fair skin ; they cultivated 
when first visited the potato (or the groundnut), tobacco, and 
cotton (Humboldt) ; they reckoned time by disks of wood divided 
into sixty segments (Lederer) ; and just in this latitude the most 
careful determination fixes the mysterious White-man' s-land, or 
Great Ireland of the Icelandic Sagas (see the American Hist. 
Mag., ix. p. 364), where the Scandinavian sea rovers in the 
eleventh century found men of their own color, clothed in long 
woven garments, and not less civilized than themselves. 



22 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



tions, storms, and long wanderings, his chief diet 
flesh, we may more readily comprehend that conspic- 
uous disregard of human suffering, those sanguinary 
rites, that vindictive spirit, that inappeasable rest- 
lessness, which we so often find in the chronicles of 
ancient America. The law with reason objects to 
accepting a butcher as a juror on a trial for life; 
here is a whole race of butchers. 

The one mollifying element was agriculture. On 
the altar of Mixcoatl, god of hunting, the Aztec 
priest tore the heart from the human victim and 
smeared with the spouting blood the snake that 
coiled its lengths around the idol ; flowers and fruits, 
yellow ears of maize and clusters of rich bananas 
decked the shrine of Centeotl, beneficent patroness 
of agriculture, and bloodless offerings alone were her 
appropriate dues. This shows how clear, even to the 
native mind, was the contrast between these two 
modes of subsistence. By substituting a sedentary 
for a wandering life, by supplying a fixed dependence 
for an uncertain contingency, and by admonishing 
man that in preservation, not in destruction, lies his 
most remunerative sphere of activity, we can hardly 
estimate too highly the wide distribution of the zea 
mays. This was their only cereal, and it was found 
in cultivation from the southern extremity of Chili 
to the fiftieth parallel of north latitude, beyond which 
limits the low temperature renders it an uncertain 
crop. In their legends it is represented as the gift 
of the Great Spirit (Chipeways), brought from the 
terrestrial Paradise by the sacred animals (Quiches), 
and symbolically the mother of the race (Nahuas), 
and the material from which was moulded the first of 
men (Quiches). 



TEE. ESKIMOS. 



23 



As the races, so the great families of man who 
speak dialects of the same tongue are, in a sense, in- 
dividuals, bearing each its own physiognomy. When 
the whites first heard the uncouth, gutturals of the 
Indians, they frequently proclaimed that hundreds of 
radically diverse languages, invented, it was piously 
suggested, by the Devil for the annoyance of mission- 
aries, prevailed over the continent. Earnest students 
of such matters — Yater, Duponceau, Gallatin, and 
Buschmann — have, however, demonstrated that nine- 
tenths of the area of America, at its discovery, were 
occupied by tribes using dialects traceable to ten or 
a dozen primitive stems. The names of these, their 
geographical position in the sixteenth century, and, 
so far as it is safe to do so, their individual character, 
I shall briefly mention. 

Fringing the shores of the Northern Ocean from 
Mount St. E lias on the west to the Gulf of St. Law- 
rence on the east, rarely seen a hundred miles from 
the coast, were the Eskimos. 1 They are the connect- 
ing link between the races of the Old and New 
"Worlds, in physical appearance and mental traits 

1 The name Eskimo is from the Algonkin word EskimanticJc, 
eaters of raw flesh. There is reason to believe that at one time 
they possessed the Atlantic coast considerably to the south. The 
Northmen, in the year 1000, found the natives of Yinland, prob- 
ably near Khode Island, of the same race as they were familiar 
with in Labrador. They call them Skralingar, chips, and de- 
scribe them as numerous and short of stature (Eric Eothens 
Saga, in Mueller, Sagcenbibliothek, p. 214). It is curious that 
the traditions of the Tuscaroras, who placed their arrival on the 
Virginian coast about 1300, spoke of the race they found there as 
eaters of raw flesh and ignorant of maize (Lederer, Account of 
North America, in Harris, Voyages). 



7 



24 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

more allied to the former, but in language betraying 
their near kinship to the latter. An amphibious race, 
born fishermen, in their buoyant skin kayaks they 
brave fearlessly the tempests, make long voyages, 
and merit the sobriquet bestowed upon them by 
Yon Baer, " the Phenicians of the north." Contrary 
to what one might suppose, they are, amid their 
snows, a contented, light-hearted people, knowing no 
longing for a sunnier clime, given to song, music, and 
merry tales. They are cunning handicraftsmen to a 
degree, but withal wholly ingulfed in a sensuous 
existence. The desperate struggle for life engrosses 
them, and their mythology is barren. 

South of them, extending in a broad band across 
the continent from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific, aod 
almost to the Great Lakes below, is the Athapascan 
stock. Its affiliated tribes rove far north to the 
mouth of the Mackenzie River, and wandering still 
more widely in an opposite direction along both de- 
clivities of the Rocky Mountains, people portions of 
the coast of Oregon south of the mouth of the 
Columbia, and spreading over the plains of New 
Mexico under the names of Apaches, Navajos, and 
Lipans, almost reach the tropics at the delta of the 
Rio Grande del Norte, and on the shores of the Gulf 
of California. No wonder they deserted their father- 
land and forgot it altogether, for it is a very terra 
damnata, whose wretched inhabitants are cut off alike 
from the harvest of the sea and the harvest of the 
soil. The profitable culture of maize does not ex- 
tend beyond the fiftieth parallel of latitude, and less 
than seven degrees farther north the mean annual 
temperature everywhere east of the mountains sinks 



THE AL GONE INS AND IROQUOIS. 



25 



below the freezing point. 1 Agriculture is impossible, 
and the only chance for life lies in the uncertain for- 
tunes of the chase and the penurious gifts of an arctic 
flora. The denizens of these wilds are abject, slo- 
venly, hopelessly savage, " at the bottom of the scale 
of humanity in North America," says Dr. Kichardson, 
and their relatives who have wandered to the more 
genial climes of the south are as savage as they, as 
perversely hostile to a sedentary life, as gross and 
narrow in their moral notions. This wide-spread 
stock, scattered over forty -five degrees of latitude, 
covering thousands of square leagues, reaching from 
the Arctic Ocean to the confines of the empire of the 
Montezumas, presents in all its subdivisions the same 
mental physiognomy and linguistic peculiarities. 2 

Best known to us of all the Indians are the Al- 
gonkins and Iroquois, who, at the time of the dis- 
covery, were the sole possessors of the region now 
embraced by Canada and the eastern United States 
north of the thirty-fifth parallel. The latter, under 
the names of the Five Nations, Hurons, Tusca- 
roras, Susquehannocks, Nottoways and others, oc- 
cupied much of the soil from the St. Lawrence and 
Lake Ontario to the Eoanoke, and perhaps the 
, Cherokees, whose homes were in the secludecl vales 
of East Tennessee, were one of their early offshoots. 3 

1 Kicliardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 374. 

2 The late Professor W. W. Turner of Washington, and Pro- 
fessor Buschmann of Berlin, are the two scholars who have 
traced the boundaries of this widely dispersed family. The name 
is drawn from Lake Athapasca in British America. 

3 The Cherokee tongue has a limited number of words in com- 
mon with the Iroquois, and its structural similarity is close. The 
name is of unknown origin. It should doubtless be spelled Tsa- 



26 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



They were a race of warriors, courageous, cruel, un- 
imaginative, but of rare political sagacity. They are 
more like ancient Eomans than Indians, and are lead- 
ing figures in the colonial wars. 

The Algonkins surrounded them, on every side, 
occupying the rest of the region mentioned and run- 
ning westward to the base of the Kocky Mountains, 
where one of their famous bands, the Blackfeet, still 
hunts over the valley of the Saskatchewan. They 
were more genial than the Iroquois, of milder man- 
ners and more vivid fancy, and were regarded by 
these with a curious mixture of respect and contempt. 
Some writer has connected this difference with their 
preference for the open prairie country in contrast to 
the endless and sombre forests where were the homes 
of the Iroquois. Their history abounds in great men, 
whose ambitious plans were foiled by the levity of 
their allies and their want of persistence. They it 
was who under King Philip fought the Puritan 
fathers ; who at the instigation of Pontiac doomed to 
death every white trespasser on their soil ; who led 
by Tecumseh and Black Hawk gathered the clans of 
the forest and mountain for the last pitched battle of 
the races in the Mississippi valley. To them be- 
longed the mild mannered Lenni Lenape, who little 
foreboded the hand of iron that grasped their own so 
softly under the elm tree of Shackamaxon, to them 
the restless Shawnee, the gypsy of the wilderness, 

lakie, a plural form, almost the same as that of the river Tellico, 
properly Tsaliko (Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee, p. 87), on the 
banks of which their principal towns were situated. Adair's 
derivation from cheer a, fire, is worthless, as no such word exists 
in their language. 



THE APALA CHI AN TRIBES. 



27 



the Chipeways of Lake Superior, and also to them 
the Indian girl Pocahontas, who in the legend averted 
from the head of the white man the blow which, re- 
bounding, swept away her father and all his tribe. 1 

Between their southernmost outposts and the Grulf 
of Mexico were a number of clans, mostly speaking 
the Muscogee tongue, Creeks, Choctaws, Chikasaws, 
and others, in later times summed up as Apalachian 
Indians, but by early writers sometimes referred to 
as "The Empire of the Natchez." For "tradition 
says that long ago this small tribe, whose home was 
in the Big Black country, was at the head of a loose 
confederation embracing most of the nations from the 
Atlantic coast quite into Texas ; and adds that the 
expedition of De Soto severed its lax bonds and 
shook it irremediably into fragments. Whether this 
is worth our credence or not, the comparative civili- 
zation of the Natchez, and the analogy their language 
bears to that of the Mayas of Yucatan, the builders of 
those ruined cities which Stephens and Catherwood 
have made so familiar to the world, attach to them a 
peculiar interest. 2 

1 The term Algonkin may be a corruption of agomeegwin, 
people of the other shore. Algic, often used synonymously, is 
an adjective manufactured by Mr. Schoolcraft "from the words 
Alleghany and Atlantic" (Algic Researches, ii. p. 12). There is 
no occasion to accept it, as there is no objection to employing 
Algonkin both as substantive and adjective. Iroquois is a French 
compound of the native words hiro, I have said, and koue, an in- 
terjection of assent or applause, terms constantly heard in their 
councils. 

2 Apalachian, which should be spelt with one p, is formed of 
two Creek words, apala, the great sea, the ocean, and the suffix 
cM, people, and means those dwelling by the ocean. That the 
Natchez were offshoots of the Mayas I was the first to surmise 



28 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



North, of the Arkansas River on the right bank of 
the Mississippi, quite to its source, stretching over to 
Lake Michigan at Green Bay, and up the valley of 
the Missouri west to the mountains, resided the Da- 
kotas, an erratic folk, averse to agriculture, but dar- 
ing hunters and bold warriors, tall and strong of 
body. 1 Their religious notions have been carefully 
studied, and as they are remarkably primitive and 
transparent, they will often be referred to. The 
Sioux and the Winnebagoes are well-known branches 
of this family. 

We have seen that Dr. Richardson assigned to a 
portion of the Athapascas the lowest place among 
North American tribes, but there are some in New 
Mexico who might contest the sad distinction, the 
Root Diggers, Comanches and others, members of 
the Snake or Shoshonee family, scattered extensively 
northwest of Mexico. It has been said of a part of 
these that they are " nearer the brutes than probably 
any other portion of the human race on the face of 
the globe." 2 Their habits in some respects are more 
brutish than those of any brute, for there is no limit 

and to prove by a careful comparison of one hundred Natchez 
words with their equivalents in the Maya dialects. Of these, five 
have affinities more or less marked to words peculiar to the Huas- 
tecas of the river Panuco (a Maya colony), thirteen to words 
common to Huasteca and Maya, and thirty-nine to words of 
similar meaning in the latter language. This resemblance may 
be exemplified by the numerals, one, two, four, seven, eight, 
twenty. In Natchez they are hu, ah, gan, uk-woh, upJcu-tepis7i, 
oka-poo : in Maya, hu, ca, can, uk, uapxw, hunkal. (See the Am. 
Hist. Mag., New Series, vol. i. p. 16, Jan. 1867.) 

1 Dakota, a native word, means friends or allies. 

2 Rep. of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, p. 209. 



THE AZTEC FAMILY. 



20 



to man's moral descent or ascent, and the observer 
might well be excused for doubting whether such a 
stock ever had a history in the past, or the possibility 
of one in the future. Yet these debased creatures 
speak a related dialect, and are beyond a doubt 
largely of the same blood as the famous Aztec race, 
who founded the empire of Anahuac, and raised archi- 
tectural monuments rivalling the most famous struc- 
tures of the ancient world. This great family, whose 
language has been traced from Nicaragua to Van- 
couver's Island, and whose bold intellects colored all 
the civilization of the northern continent, was com- 
posed in that division of it found in New Spain 
chiefly of two bands, the Toltecs, whose traditions 
point to the mountain ranges of Guatemala as their 
ancient seat, and the Nahuas, who claim to have come 
at a later period from the northwest coast, and to- 
gether settled in and near the valley of Mexico. 1 

1 According to Professor Buschmarm Aztec is probably from 
iztac, white, and Nahuatlacatl signifies those who speak the lan- 
guage Naliuatl, clear sounding, sonorous. The Abbe Brasseur 
(de Bourbourg), on the other hand, derives the latter from 
the Quiche nawal, intelligent,. and adds the amazing information 
that this is identical with the English know all! ! {Hist, du Mex- 
ique, etc., i. p. 102). For in his theory several languages of 
Central America are derived from the same old Indo-Germanic 
stock as the English, German, and cognate tongues. Toltec, 
from Toltecatl, means inhabitant of Tollan, which latter may 
be from tolin, rush, and signify the place of rushes. The signifi- 
cation artificer, often assigned to Toltecatl, is of later date, and 
was derived from the famed artistic skill of this early folk (Busch- 
mann, Aztek. Ortsnamen, p. 682: Berlin, 1852). The Toltecs 
are usually spoken of as anterior to the Nahuas, but the Tlas- 
caltecs and natives of Cholollan or Cholula were in fact Toltecs, 
unless we assign to this latter name a merely mythical significa- 
tion. The early migrations of the two Aztec bands and their 



30 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

Outlying colonies on the shore of Lake Nicaragua 
and in the mountains of Vera Paz rose to a civiliza- 
tion that rivalled that of the Montezumas, while 
others remained in utter barbarism in the far north. 

The Aztecs not only conquered a Maya colony, 
and founded the empire of the Quiches in Central 
America, a complete body of whose mythology has 
been brought to light in late years, but seem to have 
made a marked imprint on the Mayas themselves. 
These possessed, as has already been said, the penin- 
sula of Yucatan. There is some reason to suppose 
they came thither originally from the Greater An- 
tilles, and none to doubt but that the Huastecas who 
lived on the river Panuco and the Natchez of Louisi- 
ana were offshoots from them. Their language is 
radically distinct from that of the Aztecs, but their 
calendar and a portion of their mythology are com- 
mon property. They seem an ancient race of mild 
manners and considerable polish. No American 
nation offers a more promising field for study. Their 
stone temples still bear testimony to their uncommon 
skill in the arts. A trustworthy tradition dates the 
close of the golden age of Yucatan a century anterior 
to its discovery by Europeans. Previously it had 
been one kingdom, under one ruler, and prolonged 

relationship, it may be said in passing, are as yet extremely 
obscure. The Shoshonees when first known dwelt as far north 
as the head waters of the Missouri, and in the country now occu- 
pied by the Black Feet. Their language, which includes that of 
the Comanche, Wihinasht, Utah, and kindred bands, was first 
shown to have many and marked affinities with that of the 
Aztecs by Professor Buschmann in his great work, Ueber die 
Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im ridrdlichen Mexico und liohe- 
ren Amerikanischen Norden, p. 648 : Berlin, 1854. 



THE MUYSCAS AND PERUVIANS. 



31 



peace had fostered the growth of the fine arts ; but 
when their capital Mayapan fell, internal dissensions 
ruined most of their cities. 

No connection whatever has been shown between 
the civilization of North and South America. In the 
latter continent it was confined to two totally foreign 
tribes, the Muyscas, whose empire, called that of the 
Zacs, was in the neighborhood of Bogota, and the 
Peruvians, who in their two related divisions of 
Quichuas and Aymaras extended their language and 
race along the highlands of the Cordilleras from the 
equator to the thirtieth degree of south latitude. 
Lake Titicaca seems to have been the cradle of their 
civilization, offering another example how inland seas 
and well-watered plains favor the change from a 
hunting to an agricultural life. These four nations, 
the Aztecs, the Mayas, the Muyscas and the Peru- 
vians, developed spontaneously and independently 
under the laws of human progress what civilization 
was found among the red race. They owed nothing 
to Asiatic or European teachers. The Incas it was 
long supposed spoke a language of their own, and 
this has been thought evidence of foreign extraction ; 
but Wilhelm von Humboldt has shown conclusively 
that it was but a dialect of the common tongue of 
their country. 1 

1 His opinion was founded on an analysis of fifteen words of 
the secret language of the Incas preserved in the Royal Commen- 
taries of Garcilasso de la Vega. On examination, they all proved 
to be modified forms from the lengua general (Meyen, Ueber die 
Ureinwohner von Peru, p. 6). The Quichuas of Peru must not 
be confounded with the Quiches of Guatemala. Quiche is the 
name of a place, and means "many trees;" the derivation of 
Quichua is unknown. Muyscas means "men." This nation 
also called themselves Chibchas. 



i 



82 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



When Columbus first touched the island of Cuba, 
he was regaled with horrible stories of one-eyed 
monsters who dwelt on the other islands, but 
plundered indiscriminately on every hand. These 
turned out to be the notorious Caribs, whose other 
name, Cannibals, has descended as a common noun to 
our language, expressive of one of their inhuman 
practices. They had at that time seized many of the 
Antilles, and had gained a foothold on the coast of 
Honduras and Darien, but pointed for their home to 
the mainland of South America. This they possessed 
along the whole northern shore, inland at least as 
far as the south bank of the Amazon, and west nearly 
to the Cordilleras. It is still an open question 
whether the Tupis and Gruaranis who inhabit the 
vast region between the Amazon and the Pampas of 
Buenos Ayres are affined to them. The traveller 
D'Orbigny zealously maintains the affirmative, and 
there is certainly some analogy of language, but 
withal an inexplicable contrast of character. The 
latter were, and are, in the main, a peaceable, inoffen- 
sive, apathetic set, dull and unambitious, while the 
Caribs won a terrible renown as bold warriors, daring 
navigators, skilful in handicrafts ; and their poisoned 
arrows, cruel and disgusting habits, and enterprise, 
rendered them a terror and a by-word for genera- 
tions. 1 

Our information of the natives of the Pampas, Pata- 
gonia, and the Land of Fire, is too vague to permit 

1 The significance of Carib is probably warrior. It may be the 
same word as Guarani, which also has this meaning. Tupi or 
Tupa is the name given the thunder, and can only be understood 
mythically. 



COURSE OF MIGRATIONS 



33 



their positive identification with the Araucanians of 
Chili ; but there is much to render the view plausible. 
Certain physical peculiarities, a common unconquer- 
able love of freedom, and a delight in war, bring 
them together, and at the same time place them both 
in strong contrast to their northern neighbors. 1 

There are many tribes whose affinities remain to 
be decided, especially on the Pacific coast. The lack 
of inland water communication, the difficult nature 
of the soil, and perhaps the greater antiquity of the 
population there, seem to have isolated and split up 
beyond recognition the indigenous families on that 
shore of the continent ; while the great river systems 
and broad plains of the Atlantic slope facilitated 
migration and intercommunication, and thus pre- 
served national distinctions over thousands of square 
leagues. 

These natural features of the continent, compared 
with the actual distribution of languages, offer .our 
only guides in forming an opinion as to the migra- 
tions of these various families in ancient times. Their 
traditions, take even the most cultivated, are confused, 
contradictory, and in great part manifestly fabulous. 
To construct from them by means of daring combina- 
tions and forced interpretations a connected account 
of the race during the centuries preceding Columbus 
were with the aid of a vivid fancy an easy matter, 
but would be quite unworthy the name of history. 
The most that can be said with certainty is that the 

1 The Araucanians probably obtained their name from two 
Quichua words, art auccan, yes ! they fight ; an idiom very ex- 
pressive of their warlike character. They had had long and 
terrible wars with the Incas before the arrival of Pizarro. 
3 



34 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



general course of migrations in both Americas was 
from the high latitudes toward the tropics, and 
from the great western chain of mountains toward 
the east. No reasonable doubt exists but that the 
Athapascas, Algonkins, Iroquois, Apalachians, and 
Aztecs all migrated from the north and west to the 
regions they occupied. In South America, curiously 
enough, the direction is reversed. If the Caribs belong 
to the Tupi-Guaranay stem, and if the Quichuas be- 
long to the Aymaras, as there is strong likelihood, 1 
then nine-tenths of the population of that vast con- 
tinent wandered forth from the steppes and valleys at 
the head waters of the Eio de la Plata toward the 
Gulf of Mexico, where they came in collision with 
that other wave of migration surging down from 
high northern latitudes. For the banks of the river 
Paraguay and the steppes of the Bolivian Cordilleras 
are unquestionably the earliest traditional homes of 
both Tupis and Aymaras. 

These movements took place not in large bodies 
under the stimulus of a settled purpose, but step by 
step, family by family, as the older hunting grounds 
became too thickly peopled. This fact hints unmis- 
takably at the gray antiquity of the race. It were 
idle even to guess how great this must be, but it is 
possible to set limits to it in both directions. On the 
one hand, not a tittle of evidence is on record to 

1 Since writing the text I have received the admirable work of 
Dr. von Martius, Beitrage zur EthnograpMe und Sprachenkunde 
AmeriTca's zumal Brasiliens, Leipzig, 1867, in which I observe 
that that profound student considers that there is no doubt but 
that the Island Caribs, and the Galibis of the main land are de- 
scendants from the same stock as the Tupis and Guaranis. 



AGE OF MAN IN AMERICA. 



85 



carry the age of man in America beyond the present 
geological epoch. Dr. Lnncl examined in Brazil 
more than eight hundred caverns, out of which num- 
ber only six contained human bones, and of these six 
only one had with the human bones those of animals 
now extinct. Even in that instance the original 
stratification had been disturbed, and probably the 
bones had been interred there. 1 This is strong nega- 
tive evidence. So in every other example where an 
unbiased and competent geologist has made the exa- 
mination, the alleged discoveries of human remains 
in the older strata have proved erroneous. 

The cranial forms of the American aborigines have 
by some been supposed to present anomalies distin- 
guishing their race from all others, and even its 
chief families from one another. This, too, falls to 
the ground before a rigid analysis. The last word of 
craniology, which at one time promised to revolu- 
tionize ethnology and even history, is that no one 
form of the skull is peculiar to the natives of the New 
World ; that in the same linguistic family one glides 
into another by imperceptible degrees ; and that there 
is as much diversity, and the same diversity among 
them in this respect as among the races of the Old 
Continent. 2 Peculiarities of structure, though they 
may pass as general truths, offer no firm foundation 

1 Comptes Bendus, vol. xxi. p. 1368 sqq. 

2 The two best authorities are Daniel Wilson, The American 
Cranial Type, in Ann. Eep. of the Smithson. Inst., 1862, p. 240, 
and J. A. Meigs, Cranial Forms of the Amer. Aborigs. : Phila. 
1866. They accord in the views expressed in the text and in the 
rejection of those advocated by Dr. S. G. Morton in the Crania 
Americana. 



36 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

whereon to construct a scientific ethnology. Anatomy 
shows nothing unique in the Indian, nothing demand- 
ing for its development any special antiquity, still 
less an original diversity of type. 

On the other hand, the remains of primeval art and 
the impress he made upon nature bespeak for man a 
residence in the New World coeval with the most 
distant events of history. By remains of art I do 
not so much refer to those desolate palaces which 
crumble forgotten in the gloom of tropical woods, 
nor even the enormous earthworks of the Mississippi 
valley covered with the mould of generations of forest 
trees, but rather to - the humbler and less deceptive 
relics of his kitchens and his hunts. On the Atlantic 
coast one often sees the refuse of Indian villages, 
where generation after generation have passed their 
summers in fishing, and left the bones, shells, and 
charcoal as their only epitaph. How many such 
summers would it require for one or two hundred 
people to thus gradually accumulate a mound of offal 
eight or ten feet high and a hundred yards across, as 
is common enough ? How many generations to heap 
up that at the mouth of the Altamaha Kiver, examined 
and pronounced exclusively of this origin by Sir 
Charles Lyell, 1 which is about this height, and covers 
ten acres of ground ? Those who, like myself, have 
tramped over many a ploughed field in search of 
arrow-heads must have sometimes been amazed at the 
numbers which are sown over the face of our country, 
betokening a most prolonged possession of the soil by 
their makers. For a hunting population is always 



Second Visit to the United States, i. p. 252. 



IXFLUEXCE OF MAN ON NATURE. 



37 



sparse, and the collector finds only those arrow-heads 
which lie npon the surface. 

Still more forcibly does nature herself bear wit- 
ness to this antiquity of possession. Botanists de- 
clare that a very lengthy course of cultivation is 
required so to alter the form of a plant that it can no 
longer be identified with the wild species ; and still 
more protracted must be the artificial propagation for 
it to lose its power of independent life, and to rely 
wholly on man to preserve it from extinction. Now 
this is precisely the condition of the maize, tobacco, 
cotton, quinoa, and mandioca plants, and of that 
species of palm called by botanists the Gulielma 
speciosa ; all have been cultivated from immemorial 
time by the aborigines of America, and, except cot- 
ton, by no other race ; all no longer are to be identi- 
fied with any known wild species ; several are sure 
to perish unless fostered by human care. 1 What 
numberless ages does this suggest ? How many cen- 
turies elapsed ere man thought of cultivating Indian 
corn ? How many more ere it had spread over nearly 
a hundred degrees of latitude, and lost all semblance 
to its original form? "Who has the temerity to an- 
swer these questions? The judicious thinker will 
perceive in them satisfactory reasons for dropping 
once for all the vexed inquiry, " how America was 
peopled," and will smile at its imaginary solutions, 
whether they suggest Jews, Japanese, or, as the latest 
theory is, Egyptians. 

1 Martius, Von dem RecMzustande unter den Ureinwohnern 
Brasiliens, p. 80 : Muenchen, 1832 ; recently republished in his 
Beitrage zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika's : Leip- 
zig, 1867. 



- 38 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

While these and other considerations testify forci- 
bly to that isolation I have already mentioned, they 
are almost equally positive for an extensive inter- 
course in very distant ages between the great families 
of the race, and for a prevalent unity of mental type, 
or perhaps they hint at a still visible oneness of de- 
scent. In their stage of culture, 'the maize, cotton, 
and tobacco could hardly have spread so widely by 
commerce alone. Then there are verbal similarities 
running through wide families of languages which, 
in the words of Professor Buschmann, are " calcu- 
lated to fill us with bewildering amazement," 1 some 
of which will hereafter be pointed out ; and lastly, 
passing to the psychological constitution of the race, 
we may quote the words of a sharp-sighted naturalist, 
whose monograph on one of its tribes is unsurpassed 
for profound reflections : " Not only do all the primi- 
tive inhabitants of America stand on one scale of re- 
lated culture, but that mental condition of all in 
which humanity chiefly mirrors itself, to wit, their 
religious and moral consciousness, this source of all 
other inner and outer conditions, is one with all, 
however diverse the natural influences under which 
they live." 2 

Penetrated with the truth of these views, all arti- 
ficial divisions into tropical or temperate, civilized 
or barbarous, will in the present work, so far as pos- 
sible, be avoided, and the race will be studied as a 
unit, its religion as the development of ideas common 
to all its members, and its myths as the garb thrown 

1 AthapasJcisc7ie Spraclistamm, p. 164 : Berlin, 1856. 

2 Martius, Von dem RecMzustande unter den Ureinwolinem 
Brasilie?is, p. 77. 



WRITERS ON AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY. 



around these ideas by imaginations more or less fer- 
tile, but seeking everywhere to embody the same 
notions. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. 

As the subject of American mythology is a new one to most 
readers, and as in its discussion everything depends on a careful 
selection of authorities, it is well at the outset to review very 
briefly what has already been written upon it, and to assign the 
relative amount of weight that in the following pages will be 
given to the works most frequently quoted. The conclusions I 
have arrived at are so different from those who have previously 
touched upon the topic that such a step seems doubly advisable. 

The first who undertook a philosophical survey of American 
religions was Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis, in 1819 (A Discourse 
on the Religion of the Indian Tribes of North America, Collections 
of the New York Historical Society, vol. iii. , New York,1821) . He 
confined himself to the tribes north of Mexico, a difficult portion 
of the field, and at that time not very well known. The notion 
of a state of primitive civilization prevented Dr. Jarvis from 
forming any correct estimate of the native religions, as it led him 
to look upon them as deteriorations from purer faiths instead of 
developments. Thus he speaks of them as having " departed less 
than among any other nation from the form of primeval truth,' ' 
and also mentions their "wonderful uniformity" (pp. 219, 221). 

The well-known American ethnologist, Mr. E. G. Squier, has 
also published a work on the subject, of wider scope than its title 
indicates (The Serpent Symbol in America, New York, 1851). 
Though written in a much more liberal spirit than the preceding, 
it is wholly in the interests of one school of mythology, and it the 
rather shallow physical one, so fashionable in Europe half a cen- 
tury ago. Thus, with a sweeping generalization, he says, " The 
religions or superstitions of the American nations, however dif- 
ferent they may appear to the superficial glance, are rudimentally 
the same, and are only modifications of that primitive system 
which under its physical aspect has been denominated Sun or 
Fire worship" (p. 111). With this he combines the favorite and 
(may I add ?) characteristic French doctrine, that the chief topic 
of mythology is the adoration of the generative power, and to 
rescue such views from their materializing tendencies, imagines 



40 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



to counterbalance them a clear, universal monotheism. "We 
claim to have shown," he says (p. 154), "that the grand concep- 
tion of a Supreme Unity and the doctrine of the reciprocal prin- 
ciples existed in America in a well defined and clearly recognized 
form;" and elsewhere that "the monotheistic idea stands out 
clearly in all the religions of America" (p. 151). 

If with a hope of other views we turn to our magnificent 
national work on the Indians (History, Conditions, and Prospects 
of the Indian Tribes of the United States : Washington, 1851-9), a 
great disappointment awaits us. That work was unfortunate in 
its editor. It is a monument of American extravagance and super- 
ficiality. Mr. Schoolcraft was a man of deficient education and 
narrow prejudices, pompous in style, and inaccurate in state- 
ments. The information from original observers it contains is 
often of real value, but the general views on aboriginal history 
and religion are shallow and untrustworthy in the extreme. 

A German professor, Dr. J. G. Miiller, has written quite a 
voluminous work on American Primitive Religions ( Oesc7iic7ite 
der Amerikanisclien Ur-religionen, pp. 707: Basel, 1855). His 
theory is that "at the south a worship of nature with the adora- 
tion of the sun as its centre, at the north a fear of spirits com- 
bined with fetichism, made up the two fundamental divisions of 
the religion of the red race" (pp. 89, 90). This imaginary anti- 
thesis he traces out between the Algonkin and Apalachian tribes, 
and between the Toltecs of Guatemala and the Aztecs of Mexico. 
His quotations are nearly all at second hand, and so little does he 
criticize his facts as to confuse the Vaudoux worship of the Haitian 
negroes with that of Yotan in Chiapa. His work can in no sense 
be considered an authority. 

Very much better is the Anthropology of the late Dr. Theodore 
Waitz (Anthropologie der Naturvoelker : Leipzig, 1862-66). No 
more comprehensive, sound, and critical work on the indigenes 
of America has ever been written. But on their religions the 
author is unfortunately defective, being led astray by the hasty 
and groundless generalizations of others. His great anxiety, 
moreover, to subject all moral sciences to a realistic philosophy, 
was peculiarly fatal to any correct appreciation of religious 
growth, and his views are neither new nor tenable. 

For a different reason I must condemn in the most unqualified 
manner the attempt recently made by the enthusiastic and meri- 
torious antiquary, the Abbe E. Charles Brasseur (de Bourbourg), 



THE SACRED BOOK OF THE QUICHES. 



41 



to explain American mythology after the example of Euhemerns, 
of Thessaly, as the apotheosis of history. This theory, which has 
been repeatedly applied to other mythologies with invariable 
failure, is now disowned by every distinguished student of Euro- 
pean and Oriental antiquity ; and to seek to introduce it into 
American religions is simply to render them still more obscure 
and unattractive, and to deprive them of the only general interest 
they now have, that of illustrating the gradual development of 
the religious ideas of humanity. 

But while thus regretting the use he has made of them, all inte- 
rested in American antiquity cannot too much thank this inde- 
fatigable explorer for the priceless materials he has unearthed in 
the neglected libraries of Spain and Central America, and laid 
before the public. For the present purpose the most significant 
of these is the Sacred National Book of the Quiches, a tribe of 
Guatemala. This contains their legends, written in the original 
tongue, and transcribed by Father Francisco Ximenes about 1725. 
The manuscripts of this missionary were used early in the present 
century, by Don Felix Cabrera, but were supposed to be entirely 
lost even by the Abbe Brasseur himself in 1850 (Lettre a M. le Due 
de Valmy, Mexique, Oct. 15, 1850). Made aware of their import- 
ance by the expressions of regret used in the Abbe's letters, Dr. 
C. Sherzer, in 1854, was fortunate enough to discover them in the 
library of the University of San Carlos in the city of Guatemala. 
The legends were in Quiche with a Spanish translation and scholia. 
The Spanish was copied by Dr. Scherzer and published in Vienna, 
in 1856, under the title Las Historias del Origen de los Indios de 
Guatemala, por el B. P. F. Francisco Ximenes. In 1855 the Abbe 
Brasseur took a copy of the original which he brought out at 
Paris in 1861, with a translation of his own, under the title Vuh 
Popol: Le Livre Sacre des Quiches et les Myilies de V Antiquite 
Americaine. Internal evidence proves that these legends were 
written down by a converted native some time in the seventeenth 
century. They carry the national history back about two cen- 
turies, beyond which all is professedly mythical. Although both 
translations are colored by the peculiar views of their makers, 
this is incomparably the most complete and valuable work on 
American mythology extant. 

Another authority of inestimable value has been placed within 
the reach of scholars during the last few years. This is the Rela- 
tions de la Nouvelle France, containing the annual reports of the 



42 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



Jesuit missionaries among the Iroquois and Algonkins from and 
after 1611. My references to this are always to the reprint at 
Quebec, 1858. Of not less excellence for another tribe, the Creeks, 
is the brief "Sketch of the Creek Country," by Col. Benjamin 
Hawkins, written about 1800, and first published in full by the | 
Georgia Historical Society in 1848. Most of the other works to 
which I have referred are too well known to need any special 
examination here, or will be more particularly mentioned in the 
foot-notes when quoted. 



CHAPTEE II. 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 

An intuition common to the species. — Words expressing it in American 
languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or of life mani- 
fested by breath. — Examples. — No conscious monotheism, and but 
little idea of immateriality discoverable. — Still less any moral duali?m 
of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad Spirit being alike 
terms and notions of foreign importation. 

TF we accept the definition that mytholog}^ is the idea 
of God expressed in symbol, figure, and narra- 
tive, and always struggling toward a clearer utterance, 
it is well not only to trace this idea in its very earliest 
embodiment in language, but also, for the sake of 
comparison, to ask what is its latest and most approved 
expression. The reply to this is given us by Immanuel 
Kant. He has shown that our reason, dwelling on 
the facts of experience, constantly seeks the princi- 
ples which connect them together, and only rests 
satisfied in the conviction that there is a highest and 
first principle which reconciles all their discrepancies 
and binds them into one. This he calls the Ideal of 
Eeason. It must be true, for it is evolved from the 
laws of reason, our only test of truth. Furthermore, 
the sense of personality and the voice of conscience, 
analyzed to their sources, can only be explained by 
the assumption of an infinite personality and an ab- 
solute standard of right. Or, if to some all this ap- 



44 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



pears but wire-drawn metaphysical subtlety, they are 
welcome to the definition of the realist, that the idea 
of God is the sum of those intelligent activities which 
the individual, reasoning from the analogy of his own 
actions, imagines to be behind and to bring about 
natural phenomena. 1 If either of these be correct, it 
were hard to conceive how any tribe or even any sane 
man could be without some notion of divinity. 

Certainly in America no instance of its absence has 
been discovered. Obscure, grotesque, unworthy it 
often was, but everywhere man was oppressed with 
a sensus numinis, a feeling that invisible, powerful 
agencies were at work around him, who, as they 
willed, could help or hurt him. In every heart was 
an altar to the Unknown God. Not that it was cus- 
tomary to attach any idea of unity to these unseen 
powers. The supposition that in ancient times and 
in very unenlightened conditions, before mythology 
had grown, a monotheism prevailed, which afterwards 
at various times was revived by reformers, is a belief 
that should have passed away when the delights of 
savage life and the praises of a state of nature ceased 
to be the themes of philosophers. We are speaking 

1 But there is no ground for the most positive of philosophers 
to reject the doctrine of innate ideas when put in a certain way. 
The instincts and habits of the lower animals by which they ob- 
tain food, migrate, and perpetuate their kind, are in obedience to 
particular congenital impressions, and correspond to definite ana- 
tomical and morphological relations. No one pretends their 
knowledge is experimental. Just so the human cerebrum has 
received, by descent or otherwise, various sensory impressions 
peculiar to man as a species, which are just as certain to guide 
his thoughts, actions, and destiny, as is the cerebrum of the in- 
sectivorous aye-aye to lead it to hunt successfully for larvae. 



THE WORD FOR THE SUPERNATURAL. 45 



of a people little capable of abstraction. The exhi- 
bitions of force in nature seemed to them the mani- 
festations of that mysterious power felt by their 
self-consciousness ; to combine these various mani- 
festations and recognize them as the operations of 
one personality, was a step not easily taken. Yet He 
is not far from every one of us. " Whenever man 
thinks clearly, or feels deeply, he conceives Grod as 
self-conscious unity," says Carriere, with admirable 
insight; and elsewhere, "we have monotheism, not 
in contrast to polytheism, not clear to the thought, 
but in living intuition in the religious sentiments." 1 

Thus it was among the Indians. Therefore a word 
is usually found in their languages analogous to none 
in any European tongue, a word comprehending all 
manifestations of the unseen world, yet conveying 
no sense of personal unity. It has been rendered 
spirit, demon, God, devil, mystery, magic, but com- 
monly and rather absurdly by the English and 
French, "medicine." In the Algonkin dialects this 
word is manito and oki, in Iroquois oki and otkon, the 
Dakota has wakan, the Aztec teoil, the Quichua huaea, 
and the Maya ku. They all express in its most 
general form the idea of the supernatural. And as 
in this word, supernatural, we see a transfer of a 
conception of place, and that it literally means that 
which is above the natural world, so in such as we 
can analyze of these vague and primitive terms the 
same trope appears discoverable. Wahan as an 
adverb means above, oki is but another orthography 

1 Die Kunst im ZusammenJiang der Culturentwickelung, i. pp. 
50, 252. 



46 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



for oghee,. and otkon seems allied to hethen, both of 
which have the same signification. 1 

The transfer is no mere figure of speech, but has 
its origin in the very texture of the human mind. 
The heavens, the upper regions, are in every religion 
the supposed abode of the divine. What is higher 
is always the stronger and the nobler ; a superior is 
one who is better than we are, and therefore a chief- 
tain in Algonkin is called oghee-ma, the "higher one. 
There is, moreover, a naif and spontaneous instinct 
which leads man in his ecstasies of joy, and in his 
paroxysms of fear or pain, to lift his hands and eyes 
to the overhanging firmament. There the sun and 
bright stars sojourn, emblems of glory and stability. 
Its azure vault has a mysterious attraction which 
invites the eye to gaze longer and longer into its 
infinite depths. 2 Its color brings thoughts of sere- 

1 I offer these derivations with a certain degree of reserve, for 
such an extraordinary similarity in the sound of these words is 
discoverable in North and portions of South America, that one 
might almost be tempted to claim for them one original form. 
Thus in the Maya dialects it is ku, vocative a kue, in Natchez 
kue-ya, in the Uchee of West Florida kauhwu, in Otomi okha, 
in Mandan okee, Sioux ogha, waughon, wakan, in Quichua waka, 
huaca, in Iroquois quaker, oki, Algonkin oki, okee, Eskimo 
aghatt, which last has a singular likeness in sound to the German 
or Norse, 0 Gott, as some of the others have to the correspond- 
ing Finnish word ukko. Ku in the Carib tongue means house, 
especially a temple or house of the gods. The early Spanish ex- 
plorers adopted the word with the orthography cue, and applied 
it to the sacred edifices of whatever nation they discovered. For 
instance, they speak of the great cemetery of .Teotihuacan, near 
Tezcuco, as the Llano de los Cues. 

2 " As the high heavens, the far-off mountains look to us blue, 
so a blue superficies seems to recede from us. As we would fain 
pursue an attractive object that flees from us, so we like to gaze 



THE SKY AS GOD. 



47 



nity, peace, sunshine, and warmth. Even the rudest 
hunting tribes felt these sentiments, and as a meta- 
phor in their speeches, and as a paint expressive of 
friendly design, blue was in wide use among them. 1 

So it came to pass that the idea of God was linked 
to the heavens long ere man asked himself, are the 
heavens material and God spiritual, is He one, or is 
He many ? Numerous languages bear trace of this. 
The Latin Deus, the Greek Zeus, the Sanscrit Dyaus, 
the Chinese Tien, all originally meant the sky above, 
and our own word heaven is often employed syno- 
nymously with God. There is at first no personifi- 
cation in these expressions. They embrace all 
unseen agencies, they are void of personality, and 
yet to the illogical primitive man there is nothing 
contradictory in making them the object of his 
prayers. The Mayas had legions of gods; 
says their historian, 2 " does not signify any particular 
god ; yet their prayers are sometimes addressed to 
hue" which is the same word in the vocative case. 

As the Latins called their united divinities Superi, 
those above, so Captain John Smith found that the 
Powhatans of Virginia employed the word oki, above, 
in the same sense, and it even had passed into a defi- 
nite personification among them in the shape of an 
" idol of wood evil-favoredly carved." In purer 
dialects of the Algonkin it is always indefinite, as 
in the terms nipoon oki, spirit of summer, pipoon oki, 

at the blue, not that it urges itself upon us, but that it draws us 
after it." Goethe, Farbenlehre, sees. 780, 781. 

1 Loskiel, Geschichte der Mission der Emng. Brueder, p. 63 : 
Barby, 1789. 

2 Cogolludo, Historia de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. vii. 



48 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



spirit of winter. Perhaps the word was introduced 
into Iroquois by the Hurons, neighbors and associ- 
ates of the Algonkins. The Hurons applied it to 
that demoniac power " who rules the seasons of the 
year, who holds the winds and the waves in leash, 
who can give fortune to their undertakings, and 
relieve all their wants." 1 In another and far distant 
branch of the Iroquois, the Nottoways of southern 
Virginia, it reappears under the curious form quaker, 
doubtless a corruption of the Powhatan qui-oki, lesser 
gods. 2 The proper Iroquois name of him to whom 
they prayed was garonhia, which again turns out on 
examination to be their common word for sky, and 
again in all probability from the verbal root gar, to 
be above. 3 In the legends of the Aztecs and Quiches 
such phrases as " Heart of the Sky," " Lord of the 
Sky," " Prince of the Azure Planisphere," " He 
above all," are of frequent occurrence, and by a still 
bolder metaphor, the Araucanians, according to 
Molina, entitled their greatest god "The Soul of the 

Sky." 

This last expression leads to another train of 
thought. As the philosopher, pondering on the 
workings of self-consciousness, recognizes that vari- 

1 Bel. de la Nouv. France. An 1636, p. 107. 

2 This word is found in Gallatin's vocabularies {Transactions 
of the Am. Antiq. Soc, vol. ii.), and may have partially induced 
that distinguished ethnologist to ascribe, as he does in more than 
one place, whatever notions the eastern tribes had of a Supreme 
Being to the teachings of the Quakers. 

3 Bruyas, Radices Verborum Iroquceorum, p. 84. This work 
is in Shea's Library of American Linguistics, and is a most valua- 
ble contribution to philology. The same etymology is given by 
Lafitau, Mceurs des Sauvages, etc., Germ, trans., p. 65. 



THE SOUL AND THE BREATH. 49 



ous pathways lead up to God, so the primitive 
man, in forming his language, sometimes trod one, 
sometimes another. Whatever else sceptics have 
questioned, no one has yet presumed to doubt that 
if a God and a soul exist at all, they are of like 
essence. This firm belief has left its impress on 
language in the names devised to express the super- 
nal, the spiritual world. If we seek hints from 
languages more familiar to us than the tongues of 
the Indians, and take for example this word spiritual, 
we find it is from the Latin spirare, to blow, to 
breathe. If in Latin again we look for the deriva- 
tion of animus, the mind, aniraa, the soul, they point 
to the Greek anemos, wind, and aemi, to blow. In 
Greek the words for soul or spirit, psuche, pneuma, 
thumos, all are directly from verbal roots expressing 
the motion of the wind or the breath. The Hebrew 
word ruah is translated in the 'Old Testament some- 
times by wind, sometimes by spirit, sometimes by 
breath. Etymologically, in fact, ghosts and gusts, 
breaths and breezes, the Great Spirit and the Great 
Wind, are one and the same. It is easy to guess the 
reason of this. The soul is the life, the life is the 
breath. Invisible, imponderable, quickening with 
vigorous motion, slackening in rest and sleep, pass- 
ing quite away in death, it is the most obvious sign 
of life. All nations grasped the analogy and identi- 
fied the one with the other. But the breath is 
nothing but wind. How easy, therefore, to look upon 
the wind that moves up and down and to and fro 
upon the earth, that carries the clouds, itself unseen, 
that calls forth the terrible tempests and the various 
seasons, as the breath, the spirit of God, as God 
4 



50 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



himself? So in the Mosaic record of creation, it is 
said " a mighty wind" passed over the formless sea 
and brought forth the world, and when the Almighty 
gave to the clay a living soul, he is said to have 
breathed into it " the wind of lives." 

Armed with these analogies, we turn to the primi- 
tive tongues of America, and find them there as dis- 
tinct as in the Old World. In Dakota niya is literally 
breath, figuratively life ; in Netela, piuts is life, breath, 
and soul ; silla, in Eskimo, means air, it means wind, 
but it is also the word that conveys the highest idea 
of the world- as a whole, and the reasoning faculty. 
The supreme existence they call Sillam Innua, Owner 
of the Air, or of the All ; or Sillam Nelega, Lord of the 
Air or Wind. In the Yakama tongue of Oregon 
wkrislia signifies there is wind, wkrishwit, life; with 
the Aztecs, ehecatl expressed both air, life, and the 
soul, and personified in their myths it was said to 
have been born of the breath of Tezcatlipoca, their 
highest divinity, who himself is often called Yoallie- 
hecatl, the Wind of Mght. 1 

The descent is, indeed, almost imperceptible which 
leads to the personification of the wind as God, which 
merges this manifestation of life and power in one 
with its unseen, unknown cause. Thus it was a 
worthy epithet which the Creeks applied to their 
supreme invisible ruler, when they addressed him as 
Esaugetuh Emissee, Master of Breath, and doubt- 
less it was at first but a title of equivalent purport 

1 My authorities are Riggs, Diet, of the Dakota, Boscana, Ac- 
count of New California, Richardson's and Egede's Eskimo 
Vocabularies, Pandosy, Gram, and Diet, of the Yakama (Shea's 
Lib. of Am. Linguistics), and the Abbe Brasseur for the Aztec. 



GOD IN TEE WIXD. 51 

which the Cherokees, their neighbors, were wont to 
employ, Oonawleh ung-g-i, Eldest of Winds, hat 
rapidly leading to a complete identification of the 
divine with the natural phenomena of meteorology. 
This seems to have taken place in the same group of 
nations, for the original Choctaw word for Deity was 
Hushtoli, the Storm Wind. 1 The idea, indeed, was 
constantly being lost in the symbol. In the legends 
of the Quiches, the mysterious creative power is 
Hu*rakan, a name of no signification in their lan- 
guage, one which their remote ancestors brought with 
them from the Antilles, which finds its meaning in 
the ancient tongue of Haiti, and which, under the 
forms of hurricane, ouragan, orhan, was adopted into 
European marine languages as the native name of the 
terrible tornado of the Caribbean Sea. 2 Mixcohuatl, 
the Cloud Serpent, chief divinity of several tribes in 
ancient Mexico, is to this day the correct term in 
their language for the tropical whirlwind, and the 
natives of Panama worshipped the same phenomenon 

1 These terms are found in Gallatin's vocabularies. The last 
mentioned is not, as Adair thought, derived from issto ulla or 
islito lioollo, great man, for in Choctaw the adjective cannot pre- 
cede the noun it qualifies. Its true sense is visible in the analo- 
gous Creek words ishtali, the storm wind, and hustolah, the 
windy season. 

2 Webster derives hurricane from the Latin furio. But Oviedo 
tells us in his description of Hispaniola that " Hurakan, in lingua 
di questa isola vuole dire propriamente fortuna tempestuosa molto 
eccessiva, perche en effetto non e altro que un grandissimo vento 
e pioggia insieme." Historia delV Indie, lib. vi. cap. hi. It is 
a coincidence — perhaps something more — that in the Quichua 
language huracan, third person singular present indicative of the 
verbal noun Tiuraca, means "a stream of water falls perpendi- 
cularly." (Markham, Quichua Dictionary, p. 132.), 



52 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



under the name Tuyra. 1 To kiss the air was in Peru 
the commonest and simplest sign of adoration to the 
collective divinities. 2 

Many writers on mythology have commented on 
the prominence so frequently given to the winds. 
None have traced it to its true source. The facts of 
meteorology have been thought all sufficient for a 
solution. As if man ever did or ever could draw the 
idea of God from nature ! In the identity of wind 
with breath, of breath with life, of life with soul", of 
soul with God, lies the far deeper and far truer rea- 
son, whose insensible development I have here traced, 
in outline indeed, but confirmed by the evidence of 
language itself. 

Let none of these expressions, however, be con- 
strued to prove the distinct recognition of One Su- 
preme Being. Of monotheism either as displayed in 
the one personal definite God of the Semitic races, or 
in the dim pantheistic sense of the Brahmins, there 
was not a single instance on the American continent. 
The missionaries found no word in any of their lan- 
guages fit to interpret Deus, God. How could they 
expect it ? The associations we attach to that name 
are the accumulated fruits of nigh two thousand 
years of Christianity. The phrases Good Spirit, 
Great Spirit, and similar ones, have occasioned end- 
less discrepancies in the minds of travellers. In 
most instances they are entirely of modern origin, 
coined at the suggestion of missionaries, applied to 
the white man's God. Yery rarely do they bring any 

' Oviedo, Bel. de la Prov. de Cueba, p. 141, ed. Ternaux-Com- 
pans. 

2 Garcia, Qrigen de Us Lidios, lib. iv. cap. xxii. 



NO CONSCIOUS MONOTHEISM. 



53 



conception of personality to the native mind, very 
rarely do they signify any object of worship, perhaps 
never did in the olden times. The Jesuit Eelations 
state positively that there was no one immaterial 
god recognized by the Algonkin tribes, and that 
the title, the Great Manito, was introduced first by 
themselves in its personal sense. 1 The supreme Iro- 
quois Deity Neo or Hawaneu, triumphantly adduced 
by many writers to show the monotheism underlying 
the native creeds, and upon whose name Mr. School- 
craft has built some philological reveries, turns out 
on closer scrutiny to be the result of Christian in- 
struction, and the words themselves to be but corrup- 
tions of the French Dieu and le bon Dieu I 2 

Innumerable mysterious forces are in activity 
around the child of nature; he feels within him some- 
thing that tells him they are not of his kind, and yet 
not altogether different from him ; he sums them up 
in one word drawn from sensuous experience. Does 
he wish to express still more forcibly this sentiment, 
he doubles the word, or prefixes an adjective, or adds 
an affix, as the genius of his language may dictate. 
But it still remains to him but an unapplied abstrac- 
tion, a mere category of thought, a frame for the All. 
It is never the object of veneration or sacrifice, no 
myth brings it down to his comprehension, it is not 

1 See the Bel. de la Nouv. France pour V An 1637, p. 49. 

2 Mr. Morgan, in his excellent work, The League of the Iro- 
quois, has been led astray by an ignorance of the etymology of 
these terms. For Schoolcraft's views see his Oneota, p. 147. 
The matter is ably discussed in the Etudes Philologiques sur 
Quelques Langues Sausages de V Amerique, p. 14: Montreal, 1866 ; 
but comp. Shea, Diet. Franqais-Onontague, preface. 



54 



TEE IDEA OF GOD. 



installed in his temples. Man cannot escape the 
"belief that behind all form is one essence ; but the 
moment he would seize and define it, it eludes his 
grasp, and by a sorcery more sadly ludicrous than 
that which blinded Titania, he worships not the Infi- 
nite he thinks but a base idol of his own making. 
As in the Zend Avesta behind the eternal struggle 
of Ormuzd and Ahriman looms up the undisturbed 
and infinite Zeruana Akerana, as in the pages of the 
Greek poets we here and there catch glimpses of a 
Zeus who is not he throned on Olympus, nor he who 
takes part in the wrangles of the gods, but stands 
far off and alone, one yet all, " who was, who is, who 
will be," so the belief in an Unseen Spirit, who asks 
neither supplication nor sacrifice, who, as the natives 
of Texas told, Joutel in 1684, " does not concern him- 
self about things here below," 1 who has no name to 
call him by, and is never a figure in mythology, was 
doubtless occasionally present to their minds. It 
was present not more but far less distinctly and often 
not at all in the more savage tribes, and no assertion 
can be more contrary to the laws of religious pro- 
gress than that which pretends that a purer and more 
monotheistic religion exists among nations devoid of 
mythology. There are only two instances on the 
American continent where the worship of an immate- 
rial God was definitely instituted, and these as the 
highest conquests of American natural religions de- 
serve especial mention. 

They occurred, as we might expect, in the two most 

1 " Qui ne prencl aucun soin des choses icy bas." Jour. Hist. 
(Tun Voyage de V Amerique, p. 225: Paris, 1713. 



THE HERESY OF THE INCA. 



55 



civilized nations, the Quichuas of Peru, and the 
Nahuas of Tezcuco. It is related that about the year 
1440, at a grand religious council held at the conse- 
cration of the newly-built temple of the Sun at 
Cuzco, the Inca Yupanqui rose before the assembled . 
multitude and spoke somewhat as follows : — ■ 

" Many say that the Sun is the Maker of all things. 
But he who makes should abide by what he has made. 
Now many things happen when the Sun is absent ; 
therefore he cannot be the universal creator. And 
that he is alive at all is doubtful, for his trips do not 
tire him. Were he a living thing, he would grow 
weary like ourselves ; were he free, he would visit 
other parts of the heavens. He is like a tethered 
beast who makes a daily round under the eye of a 
master ; he is like an arrow, which must go whither 
it is sent, not whither it wishes. I tell you that he, 
our Father and Master the Sun, must have a lord and 
master more powerful than himself, who constrains 
him to his daily circuit without pause or rest." 1 

To express this greatest of all existences, a name 
was proclaimed, based upon that of the highest divi- 
nities known to the ancient Aymara race, Illatici 
Viracocha Pachacamac, literally, the thunder vase, 
the foam of the sea, animating the world, mysterious 
and symbolic names drawn from the deepest reli- 

1 In attributing this speech to the Inca Yupanqui, I have fol- 
lowed Balboa, who expressly says this was the general opinion of 
the Indians {Hist, du Perou, p. 62, ed. Ternaux-Compans). 
Others assign it to other Incas. See Garcilasso de la Vega, Hist, 
des Incas, lib. viii. chap. 8, and Acosta, Nat. and Morall Hist, 
of the New World, chap. 5. The fact and the approximate time 
are beyond question. \\^vvOkM^j\ ^A^?v^' dL%^'ti2 



56 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



gious instincts of the soul, whose hidden meanings 
will be unravelled hereafter. A temple was con- 
structed in a vale by the sea near Callao, wherein 
his worship was to be conducted without images or 
human sacrifices. The Inca was ahead of his age, 
however, and when the Spaniards visited the temple 
of Pachacamac in 1525, they found not only the 
walls adorned with hideous paintings, but an ugly 
idol of wood representing a man of colossal propor- 
tions set up therein, and receiving the prayers of the 
votaries. 1 

No better success attended the attempt of Neza- 
huatl, lord of Tezcuco, which took place about the 
same time. He had long prayed to the gods of his 
forefathers for a son to inherit his kingdom, and the 
altars had smoked vainly with the blood of slaugh- 
tered victims. At length, in indignation and despair, 
the prince exclaimed, " Yerily, these gods that I am 
adoring, what are they but idols of stone without 
speech or feeling ? They could not have made the 
beauty of the heaven, the sun, the moon, and the 
stars which adorn it, and which light the earth, with 
its countless streams, its fountains and waters, its 
trees and plants, and its various inhabitants. There 
must be some gocl, invisible and unknown, who is 
the universal creator. He alone can console me in 
my affliction and take away my sorrow." Strength- 
ened in this conviction by a timely fulfilment of his 
heart's desire, he erected a temple nine stories high 
to represent the nine heavens, which he dedicated 

, 1 Xeres, Bel. de la Gonq. du Perou, p. 151, ed. Ternaux-Com- 
pans. 



NAMES OF DEITY. 



57 



"to the Unknown God, the Cause of Causes." This 
temple, he ordained, should never be polluted by 
blood, nor should any graven image ever be set up 
within its precincts. 1 

In neither case, be it observed, was any attempt 
made to substitute another and purer religion for the 
popular one. The Inca continued to receive the 
homage of his subjects as a brother of the sun, and 
the regular services to that luminary were never 
interrupted. Nor did the prince of Tezcuco after- 
wards neglect the honors due his national gods, nor 
even refrain himself from plunging the knife into 
the breasts of captives on the altar of the god of 
war. 2 They were but expressions of that monothe- 
ism which is ever present, " not in contrast to poly- 
theism, but in living intuition in the religious senti- 
ments." If this subtle but true distinction be rightly 
understood, it will excite no surprise to find such 
epithets as "endless," "omnipotent," "invisible," 
"adorable," such appellations as "the Maker and 
Moulder of All," "the Mother and Father of Life," 
"the One God complete in perfection and unity," 
" the Creator of all that is," " the Soul of the World," 
in use and of undoubted indigenous origin not only 
among the civilized Aztecs, but even among the 
Haitians, the Araucanians, the Lenni Lenape, and 
others. 3 It will not seem contradictory to hear of 

1 Prescott, Conq. of Mexico, i. pp. 192, 193, on the authority 
of Ixtlilxochitl. 

2 Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, iii. p. 297, note. 

3 Of yery many authorities that I have at hand, I shall only 
mention Heckewelcler, Acc. of the Inds. p. 422, Duponceau, 
Mem. sur les Langues de VAmer. du Nord, p. 310, Peter Martyr 



58 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



them in a purely polytheistic worship ; we shall be 
far from regarding them as familiar to the popular 
mind, and we shall never be led so far astray as to 
adduce them in evidence of a monotheism in either 
technical sense of that word. In point of fact they 
were not applied to any particular god even in the 
most enlightened nations, but were terms of laudation 
and magniloquence used by the priests and devotees 
of every several god to do him honor. They prove 
something in regard to a consciousness of divinity 
hedging us about, but nothing at all in favor of a 
recognition of one God ; they exemplify how pro- 
found is the conviction of a highest and first princi- 
ple, but they do not offer the least reason to surmise 
that this was a living reality in doctrine or practice. 
The confusion of these distinct ideas has led to 

De Rebus Oceanicis, Dec. i., cap. 9, Molina, Hist, of Chili, ii. 
p. 75, Ximenes, Origen de los Indios de Guatemala, pp. 4, 5, 
Ixtlilxoclritl, Rel. des Conq. du Mexique, p. 2. These terms 
bear the severest scrutiny. The Aztec appellation of the Supreme 
Being Tloque nahuaque is compounded of tloc, together, with, 
and nahuac, at, by, with, with possessive forms added, giving 
the signification, Lord of all existence and coexistence (alles 
Mitseyns und alles Beiseyns, bei welchem das Seyn aller Dinge 
ist. Buschmann, Ueber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen, p. 642). 
The Algonkin term Kittanittowit is derived from kitta, great, 
manito, spirit, wit, an adjective termination indicating a mode 
of existence, and means the Great Living Spirit (Duponceau, 
u. s.). Both these terms are undoubtedly of native origin. In 
the Quiche legends the Supreme Being is called Bitot, the sub- 
stantive form of bit, to make pottery, to form, and Tzakol, sub- 
stantive form of tzak, to build, the Creator, the Constructor. 
The Arowacks of Guyana applied the term Aluberi to their 
highest conception of a first cause, from the verbal form alin, he 
who makes (Martius, Ethnograipliie und Sprachenkunde Ame- 
rika's, i. p. 696). 



THE IDEA OF THE DEVIL. 



59 



much misconception of the native creeds. But another 
and more fatal error was that which distorted them 
into a dualistic form, ranging on one hand the good 
spirit with his legions of angels, on the other the evil 
one with his swarms of fiends, representing the world 
as the scene of their unending conflict, man as the 
unlucky football who gets all the blows. This no- 
tion, which has its historical origin among the Parsees 
of ancient Iran, is unknown to savage nations. " The 
idea of the Devil," justly observes Jacob Grimm, "is 
foreign to all primitive religions." Yet Professor 
Mueller, in his voluminous work on those of America, 
after approvingly quoting this saying, complacently 
proceeds to classify the deities as good or bad spirits I 1 
This view, which has obtained without question 
in every work on the native religions of America, 
has arisen partly from habits of thought difficult to 
break, partly from mistranslations of native words, 
partly from the foolish axiom of the early mission- 
aries, " The gods of the gentiles are devils." Yet 
their own writings furnish conclusive proof that no 
such distinction existed out of their own fancies. 
The same word (otko?i) which Father Bruyas employs 
to translate into Iroquois the term " devil," in the 
passage "the Devil took upon himself the figure of a 
serpent," he is obliged to use for "spirit" in the 
phrase, "at the resurrection we shall be spirits," 2 
which is a rather amusing illustration? how impossible 
it was by any native word to convey the idea of the 
spirit of evil. When, in 1570, Father Eogel com- 

1 GescMchte der Amerikanisclien Urreligionen, p. 403. 

2 Bruyas, Bad. Verb. Iroqitceorum, p. 38. 



60 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



menced his labors among the tribes near the Sa- 
vannah Eiver, he told them that the deity they 
adored was a demon who loved all evil things, and 
they must hate him ; whereupon his auditors replied, 
that so far from this being the case, whom he called 
a wicked being was the power that sent them all good 
things, and indignantly left the missionary to preach 
to the winds. 1 

A passage often quoted in support of this mistaken 
view is one in Winslow's " Good News from New 
England," written in 1622. The author says that the 
Indians worship a good power called Kiehtan, and 
another "who, as farre as wee can conceive, is 
the Devill," named Hobbamock, or Hobbamoqui. 
The former of these names is merely the word "great," 
in their dialect of Algonkin, with a final n, and is 
probably an abbreviation of Kittanitowit, the great 
manito, a vague term mentioned by Roger Williams 
and other early writers, not the appellation of any 
personified deity. 2 The latter, so far from corres- 
ponding to the power of evil, was, according ,to 
Winslow's own statement, the kindly god who cured 
diseases, aided them in the chase, and appeared to 
them in dreams as their protector. Therefore, with 
great justice, Dr. Jarvis has explained it to mean "the 

1 Alcazar, Chrono-Mstoria de la Prov. de Toledo, Dec. iii., 
Ano viii., cap. iv: 4 Madrid, 1710. This rare work contains 
the only faithful copies of Father Roger s letters extant. Mr. 
Shea, in his History of Catholic Missions, calls him erroneously 
Roger. 

2 It is fully analyzed by Duponceau, Langues de V Amerique du 
JSTord, p. 309. 



NO DUALISM IN DEITIES. 



61 



olce or tutelary deity which each Indian worships," as 
the word itself signifies. 1 

So in many instances it turns out that what has 
been reported to be the evil divinity of a nation, to 
whom they pray to the neglect of a better one, is in 
reality the highest power they recognize. Thus 
Juripari, worshipped by certain tribes of the Pam- 
pas of Buenos Ayres, and said to be their wicked 
spirit, is in fact the only name in their language for 
spiritual existence in general ; and Aka-kanet, some- 
times mentioned as the father of evil in the mythol- 
ogy of the Araucanians, is the benign power appealed 
to by their priests, who is throned in the Pleiades, who 
sends fruits and flowers to the earth, and is addressed 
as "grandfather." 2 The Qnpay of the Peruvians never 
was, as Prescott would have us believe, "the shadowy 
embodiment of evil," but simply and solely their god 
of the dead, the Pluto of their pantheon, correspond- 
ing to the Mictla of the Mexicans. 

The evidence on the point is indeed conclusive. 
The Jesuit missionaries very rarely distinguish be- 
tween good and evil deities when speaking of the 
religion of the northern tribes ; and the Moravian 
Brethren among the Algonkins and Iroquois place on 
record their unanimous testimony that " the idea of a 

1 Discourse on the BeMgion of the Ind. Tribes of N. Am., p. 252 
in the Trans. K Y. Hist. Soc. 

2 Mueller, Amer. Urreligionen, pp. 265, 272, 274. Well may 
he remark: "The dualism is not very striking among these 
tribes;" as a few pages previous he says of the Caribs, "The 
dualism of gods is anything but rigidly observed. The good 
gods do more evil than good. Fear is the ruling religious senti- 
ment." To such a lame conclusion do these venerable pre- 
possessions lead. "Grav, ist alle Theories 



62 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



devil, a prince of darkness, they first received in later 
times through the Europeans." 1 So the Cherokees, 
remarks an intelligent observer, " know nothing of 
the Evil One and his domains, except what they have 
learned from white men." 2 The term Great Spirit 
conveys, for instance, to the Chipeway just as much 
the idea of a bad as of a good spirit ; he is unaware 
of any distinction until it is explained to him. 3 "I 
have never been able to discover from the Dakotas 
themselves," remarks the Eev. Gr. H. Pond, who had 
lived among them as a missionary for eighteen years, 4 
" the least degree of evidence that they divide the 
gods into classes of good and evil, and am persuaded 
that those persons who represent them as doing so, 
do it inconsiderately, and because it is so natural to 
subscribe to a long cherished popular opinion." 

Yery soon after coming in contact with the whites, 
the Indians caught the notion of a bad and good 
spirit, pitted one against the other in eternal warfare, 
and engrafted it on their ancient traditions. Writers 
anxious to discover Jewish or Christian analogies, 
forcibly construed myths to suit their pet theories, 
and for indolent observers it was convenient to cata- 
logue their gods in antithetical classes. In Mexican 
and Peruvian mythology this is so plainly false that 
historians no longer insist upon it, but as a popular 
error it still holds its ground with reference to the 
more barbarous and less known tribes. 

1 Loskiel, Ges. der Miss, der evang. Brueder, p. 46. 

2 Whipple, Report on the Ind. Tribes, p. 35 : Washington, 
1855. Pacific Railroad Docs. 

3 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, i. p. 359. 
* In Schoolcraft, Ibid., iv. p. 642. 



MISUNDERSTOOD MYTHS. 



03 



Perhaps no myth has been so often quoted in its 
confirmation as that of the ancient Iroquois, which 
narrates the conflict between the first two brothers of 
our race. It is of undoubted native origin and vene- 
rable antiquity. The version given by the Tuscarora 
chief Cusic in 1825, relates that in the beginning of 
things there were two brothers, Enigorio and Enigo- 
hahetgea, names literally meaning the Good Mind 
and the Bad Mind. 1 The former went about the 
world furnishing it with gentle streams, fertile plains, 
and plenteous fruits, while the latter maliciously 
followed him creating rapids, thorns, and deserts. 
At length the Good Mind turned upon his brother in 
anger, and crushed him into the earth. He sank out 
of sight in its depths, but not to perish, for in the 
dark realms of the underworld he still lives, receiv- 
ing the souls of the dead and being the author of all 
evil. ISTow when we compare this with the version 
of the same legend given by Father Brebeuf, mis- 
sionary to the Hurons in 1636, we find its whole 
complexion altered ; the moral dualism vanishes ; the 
names Good Mind and Bad Mind do not appear ; it 
is the struggle of Ioskeha, the White one, with his 
brother Tawiscara, the Dark one, and we at once 
perceive that Christian influence in the course of two 
centuries had given the tale a meaning foreign to its 
original intent. 

So it is with the story the Algonkins tell of their 
hero Manibozho, who, in the opinion of a well-known 
writer, " is always placed in antagonism to a great 

1 Or more exactly, the Beautiful Spirit, the Ugly Spirit. In 
Onondaga the radicals are onigonra, spirit, Mo beautiful, ahetken 
ugly. Dictionnaire Franqais-Onontague, ediU par Jean-Marie 
Shea : New York, 1859. 



64 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



serpent, a spirit of evil." 1 It is to the effect that 
after conquering many animals, this famous magician 
tried his arts on the prince of serpents. After a pro- 
longed struggle, which brought on the general deluge 
and the destruction of the world, he won the victory. 
The first authority we have for this narrative is even 
later than Cusic ; it is Mr. Schoolcraft in our own 
dajr ; the legendary cause of the deluge as related by 
Father Le Jeune, in 1684, is quite dissimilar, and 
makes no mention of a serpent ; and as we shall here- 
after see, neither among the Algonkins nor any other 
Indians, wa^s the serpent usually a type of evil, but 
quite the reverse. 2 

The comparatively late introduction of such views 
into the native legends finds a remarkable proof in 
the myths of tHe Quiches, which were committed to 
writing in the seventeenth century. They narrate 
the struggles between the rulers of the upper and 
the nether world, the descent of the former into 
Xibalba, the Eealm of Phantoms, and their victory 
over its lords, One Death and Seven Deaths. The 
writer adds of the latter, who clearly 'represent to his 
mind the Evil One and his adjutants, "in the old 
times they did not have much power ; they were but 
annoyers and opposers of men, and in truth they 
were not regarded as gods. But when they appeared 
it was terrible. They were of evil, they were owls, 
fomenting trouble and discord." In this passage, 
which, be it said, seems to have impressed the transla- 
tors very differently, the writer appears to compare 

1 Squier, The Serpent Symbol in America. 

2 Both these legends will be. analyzed in a subsequent chapter, 
and an attempt made not only to restore them their primitive 
form, but to explain their meaning. 



A MORAL DUALISM IMPOSSIBLE. 



65 



the great power assigned by the Christian religion 
to Satan and his allies, with the very much less 
potency attributed to their analogues in heathendom, 
the rulers of the world of the dead. 1 

A little reflection will convince the most incredu- 
lous that any, such dualism as has been fancied to 
exist in the native religions, could not have been of 
indigenous growth. The gods of the primitive man 
are beings of thoroughly human physiognomy, 
painted with colors furnished by intercourse with his 
fellows. These are his enemies or his friends, as he 
conciliates or insults them. No mere man, least of 
all a savage, is kind and benevolent in spite of 
neglect and injury, nor is any man causelessly and 
ceaselessly malicious. ^ Personal, family, or national 
feuds render some more inimical than others, but 
always from a desire to guard their own interests, 
never out of a delight in evil for its own sake. Thus 
the cfcuel gods of death, disease, and danger, were 
never of Satanic nature, while the kindliest divinities 
were disposed to punish, and that severely, any 
neglect of their* ceremonies. Moral dualism can 
only arise in minds where the ideas of good and evil 
are not synonymous with those of pleasure and pain, 
for the conception of a wholly good or a wholly evil 
nature requires the use of these terms in their higher, 
ethical sense. The various deities of the Indians, it 
may safely be said in conclusion, present no stronger 
antithesis in this respect than those of ancient Greece 
and Eome. 

1 Compare the translation and remarks of Ximenes, Or. de los 
Indios de Guat., p. 76, with those of Brasseur, Le Liwe Sacre 
des Quiches, p. 189. 
5 



CHAPTER III. 



THE SACKED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS. 

The number Four sacred in all American religions, and the key to their 
symbolism. — Derived from the Cardinal Points. — Appears constantly 
in government, arts, rites, and myths. — The Cardinal Points identified 
with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four ancestors of the 
human race, and the four celestial rivers watering the terrestrial Para- 
dise. — Associations grouped around each Cardinal Point. — From the 
number four was derived the symbolic value of the number Forty, and 
the Sign of the Cross. 

T?VEKY one familiar with the ancient religions of 
the world must have noticed the mystic power 
they attach to certain numbers, and how these num- 
bers became the measures and formative quantities, 
as it were, of traditions and ceremonies, and had a 
symbolical meaning nowise connected with their 
arithmetical value. For instance, in many eastern 
religions, that of the Jews among the rest, seven was 
the most sacred number, and after it, four and three. 
The most cursory reader must have observed in how 
many connections the seven is used in the Hebrew 
Scriptures, occurring, in all, something over three 
hundred and sixty times, it is said. Why these num- 
bers were chosen rather than others has not been 
clearly explained. Their sacred character dates be- 
yond the earliest history, and must have been coeval 
with the first expressions of the religious sentiment. 
Only one of them, the four, has any prominence in 



THE CARDINAL POINTS. 



G7 



the religions of the red race, but this is so marked 
and so universal, that at a very early period in my 
studies I felt convinced that if the reason for its adop- 
tion could be discovered, much of the apparent con- 
fusion which reigns among them would be dispelled. 

Such a reason must take its rise from some essential 
relation of man to nature, everywhere prominent, 
everywhere the same. It is found in the adoration 
of the cardinal points. 

The red man, as I have said, was a hunter ; he was 
ever wandering through pathless forests, coursing 
over boundless prairies. It seems to the white race 
not a faculty, but an instinct that guides him so 
unerringly. He is never at a loss. Says a writer 
who has deeply studied his character: "The Indian 
ever has the points of the compass present to his 
mind, and expresses himself accordingly in words, 
although it shall be of matters in his own house." 1 

The assumption of precisely four cardinal points is 
not of chance ; it is recognized in every language ; it 
is rendered essential by the anatomical structure of 
the body ; it is derived from the immutable laws of 
the universe. Whether we gaze at the sunset or the 
sunrise, or whether at night we look for guidance to 
the only star of the twinkling thousands that is con- 
stant to its place, the anterior and posterior planes of 
our bodies, our right hands and our left coincide with 
the parallels and meridians. Very early in his his- 
tory did man take note of these four points, and 
recognizing in them his guides through the night and 

1 Buckingham Smith, Gram. Notices of tlie Heve Language, p. 
26 (Shea's Lib. Am. Linguistics). / 



08 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



the wilderness, call them his gods. Long afterwards, 
when centuries of slow progress had taught him other 
secrets of nature — when he had discerned in the mo- 
tions of the sun, the elements of matter, and the 
radicals of arithmetic a repetition of this number — 
they were to him further warrants of its sacredness. 
He adopted it as a regulating quantity in his institu- 
tions and his arts ; he repeated it in its multiples and 
compounds ; he imagined for it novel applications ; 
he constantly magnified its mystic meaning; and 
finally, in his philosophical reveries, he called it the 
key to the secrets of the universe, " the source of ever- 
flowing nature." 1 

In primitive geography the figure of the earth is a 
square plain ; in the legend of the Quiches it is 
" shaped as a square, divided into four parts, marked 
with lines, measured with cords, and suspended from 
the heavens by a cord to its four corners and its four 
sides." 2 The earliest divisions of territory were 
in conformity to this view. Thus it was with an- 
cient Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and China; 3 and 

1 I refer to the four "ultimate elementary particles" of Em- 
pedocles. The number was sacred to Hermes, and lay at the 
root of the physical philosophy of Pythagoras. The quotation in 
the text is from the " Golden Verses," given in Passow's lexicon 

Under the Word rsrea.y,rvg : VM fxa. tov a./ut,STSea. -^v^a TragaSoVTa. veTgaKrvv, 

wayav avtaw ^va-svi. "The most sacred of all things," said this 
famous teacher, "is Number; and next to it, that which gives 
Names ;" a truth that the lapse of three thousand years is just 
enabling us to appreciate. 

2 Ximenes, Or. de los Indios, etc., p. 5. 

3 See Sepp, Heidenthum und dessen Bedeutung fur das Chris- 
tenthum, i. p. 464 sqq., a work full of learning, but written in 
the wildest vein of Joseph de Maistre's school of Eomanizing 
mythology. 



IX ARCHITECTURE AND GOVERNMENT. 69 



in the new world, the states of Peru, Araucania, the 
Muyscas, the Quiches, and Tlascala were tetrarchies 
divided in accordance with, and in the first two in- 
stances named after, the cardinal points. So their 
chief cities — Cuzco, Quito, Tezcuco, Mexico, Cholu- 
la — were quartered by streets running north, south, 
east, and west. It was a necessary result of such a 
division that the chief officers of the government 
were four in number, that the inhabitants of town 
and country, that the whole social organization ac- 
quired a quadruplicate form. The official title of the 
Incas was " Lord of the four quarters of the earth," 
and the venerable formality in taking possession of 
land, both in their domain and that of the Aztecs, 
was to throw a stone, to shoot an arrow, or to hurl a 
firebrand to each of the cardinal points. 1 They car- 
ried out the idea in their architecture, building their 
palaces in squares with doors opening, their tombs with 
their angles pointing, their great causeways running 
in these directions. These architectural principles 
repeat themselves all over the continent ; they recur 
in the sacred structures of Yucatan, in the ancient 
cemetery of Teo-tihuacan near Mexico, where the 
tombs are arranged along avenues corresponding 
exactly to the parallels and meridians of the central 
tumuli of the sun and moon ; 2 and however ignorant 

1 Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, ii. p. 227, Le Lime Sacre des 
Qitiches, introd. p. ccxlii. The four provinces of Peru were Anti, 
Cunti, Chincha, and Colla. The meaning of these names has 
been lost, but to repeat them, says La Vega, was the same as to 
use our words, east, west, north, and south (Hist, des Incas, lib. 
ii. cap. 11). 

* Humboldt, Polit. Essay on New Spain, ii. p. 44. 



70 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



we are about the mound -builders of the Mississippi 
valley, we know that thej constructed their earth- 
works with a constant regard to the quarters of the 
compass. 

Nothing can be more natural than to take into con- 
sideration the regions of the heavens in the construc- 
tion of buildings ; I presume that at any time no one 
plans an edifice of pretensions without doing so. Yet 
this is one of those apparently trifling transactions 
which in their origin and applications have exerted a 
controlling influence on the history of the human 
race. 

When we reflect how indissolubly the mind of the 
primitive man is welded to his superstitions, it were 
incredible that his social life and his architecture 
could thus be as it were in subjection to one idea, 
and his rites and myths escape its sway. As one 
might expect, it reappears in these latter more 
vividly than anywhere else. If there is one formula 
more frequently mentioned by travellers than another 
as an indispensable preliminary to all serious busi- 
ness, it is that of smoking, and the prescribed and 
traditional rule was that the -first puff should be to 
the sky, and then one to each of the corners of the 
earth, or the cardinal points. 1 These were the spirits 
who made and governed the earth, and under what- 
ever difference of guise the uncultivated fancy por- 
trayed them, they were the leading figures in the 
tales and ceremonies of nearly every tribe of the red 

1 This custom has been often mentioned among the Iroquois, 
Algonkins, Dakotas, Creeks, Natchez, Araucanians, and other 
tribes. Nuttall points out its recurrence among the Tartars of 
Siberia also. (Travels, p. 175.) 



IN MYTH AND RITE. 



.71 



race. These were the divine powers summoned by 
the Chipeway magicians when initiating neophytes 
into the mysteries of the meda craft. They were 
asked to a lodge of four poles, to four stones that lay 
before its fire, there to remain four days, and attend 
four feasts. At every step of the proceeding this 
number or its multiples were repeated. 1 With their 
neighbors the Dakotas the number was also distinctly 
sacred ; it was intimately inwoven in all their tales 
concerning the wakan power and the spirits of the 
air, and their religious rites. The artist Catlin has 
given a vivid description of the great annual festival 
of the Mandans, a Dakota tribe, and brings forward 
with emphasis the ceaseless reiteration of this number 
from first to last. 2 He did not detect its origin in the 
veneration of the cardinal points, but the informa- 
tion that has since been furnished of the myths of 
this stock leaves no doubt that such was the case. 3 

Proximity of place had no part in this similarity 
of rite. In the grand commemorative festival of the 
Creeks called the Bask, which wiped out the memory 
of all crimes but murder, which reconciled the pro- 
scribed criminal to his nation and atoned for his guilt, 
when the new fire was kindled and the green corn 
served up, every dance, every invocation, every cere- 
mony, was shaped and ruled by the application of the 

1 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, v. pp. 424 et seq. 

2 Letters on the North American Indians, vol. i., Letter 22. 

3 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, iv. p. 643 sq. "Four is their 
sacred number," says Mr. Pond (p. 646). Their neighbors, the 
Pawnees, though not the most remote affinity can be detected 
between their languages, coincide with them in this sacred num- 
ber, and distinctly identified it with the cardinal points. See De 
Smet, Oregon Missions, pp. 360, 361. 



72 



THE SA CRED NUMBER. 



number four and its multiples in every imaginable 
relation. So it was at that solemn probation which. 

" the youth must undergo to prove himself worthy of 
the dignities of manhood and to ascertain his guardian 
spirit ; here again his fasts, his seclusions, his trials, 
were all laid down in fourfold arrangement. 1 

Not alone among these barbarous tribes were the 
cardinal points thus the foundation of the most 
solemn mysteries of religion. An excellent authority 
relates that the Aztecs of Micla, in Guatemala, cele- 
brated their chief festival four times a year, and that 

, four priests solemnized its rites. They commenced 
by invoking and offering incense to the sky and the 
four cardinal points ; they conducted the human 
victim four times around the temple, then tore out 
his heart, and catching the blood in four vases scat- 
tered it in the same directions. 2 So also the Peru- 
vians had four principal festivals annually, and at 
every new moon one of four days' duration. In fact 
the repetition of the number in all their religious 
ceremonies is so prominent that it has been a subject 
of comment by historians. They have attributed it to 
the knowledge of the solstices and equinoxes, but 
assuredly it is of more ancient date than this. The 
same explanation has been offered for its recurrence 
among the Nahuas of Mexico, whose whole lives 

1 Benj. Hawkins, Sketch of the Greek Country, pp. 75, 78: 
Savannah, 1848. The description he gives of the ceremonies of 
the Creeks was transcribed word for word and published in the 
first volume of the American Antiquarian Society's Transactions 
as of the Shawnees of Ohio. This literary theft has not before 
been noticed. 

2 Palacios, Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala, pp. 31, 32, ed. 
Ternaux-Compans. 



ffl CEREMONIES AND CALENDARS. 



73 



were subjected to its operation. At birth the mother 
was held unclean for four days, a fire was kindled 
and kept burning for a like length of time, at the 
baptism of the child an arrow was shot to each of the 
cardinal points. Their prayers were offered four times 
a day, the greatest festivals were every fourth year, 
and their offerings of blood were to the four points 
of the compass. At death food was placed on the 
grave, as among the Eskimos, Creeks, and Algonkins, 
for four days (for all these nations supposed that the 
journey to the land of souls was accomplished in that 
time), and mourning for the dead was for four months 
or four years. 1 

It were fatiguing and unnecessary to extend the 
catalogue much further. Yet it is not nearly ex- 
hausted. From tribes of both continents and all 
stages of culture, the Muyscas of Columbia and the Nat- 
chez of Louisiana, the Quiches of Guatemala and the 
Caribs of the Orinoko, instance after instance might 
be marshalled to illustrate how universally a sacred 
character was attached to this number, and how uni- 
formly it is traceable to a veneration of the cardinal 
points. It is sufficient that it be displayed in some 
of its more unusual applications. 

It is well known that the calendar common to the 

1 All familiar with Mexican antiquity will recall many such 
examples. I may particularly refer to Kingsborough, Antiqs. of 
Mexico, v. p. 480, Ternaux-Compans' Becueil de pieces rel. a la 
Conq. du Mexique, pp. 307, 310, and Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras 
que se hallaron en la plaza principal de Mexico, ii. sec. 126 
(Mexico, 1832), who gives numerous instances beyond those I 
have cited, and directs with emphasis the attention of the reader 
to this constant repetition. 



74 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



Aztecs and Mayas divides the month into four weeks, 
each containing a like number of secular days ; that 
their indiction is divided into four periods ; and that 
they believed the world had passed through four 
cycles. It has not been sufficiently emphasized that 
in many of the picture writings these days of the 
week are placed respectively north, south, east, and 
west, and that in the Maya language the quarters of 
the indiction still bear the names of the cardinal 
points, hinting the reason of their adoption. 1 This 
cannot be fortuitous. Again, the division of the year 
into four seasons — a division as devoid of founda- 
tion in nature as that of the ancient Aryans into three, 
and unknown among many tribes, yet obtained in very 
early times among Algonkins, Cherokees, Choctaws, 
Creeks, Aztecs, Muyscas, Peruvians, and Arauca- 
nians. They were supposed to be produced by the 
unending struggles and varying fortunes of the four 
aerial giants who rule the winds. 

We must seek in mythology the key to the mono- 
tonous repetition and the sanctity of this number; 
and furthermore, we must seek it in those natural 
modes of expression of the religious sentiment which 
are above the power of blood or circumstance to con- 
trol. One of these modes, we have seen, was that 
which led to the identification of the divinity with 
the wind, and this it is that solves the enigma in the 
present instance. Universally the spirits of the car- 
dinal points were imagined to be in the winds that 
blew from them. The names of these directions and 

1 Albert Gallatin, Trans. Am. Etlmol. Soc, ii. p. 316, from the 
Codex Vaticanus, No. 3738. 



THE FO UR WINDS. 



75 



of the corresponding winds are often the same, and 
when not, there exists an intimate connection between 
them. For example, take the languages of the Mayas, 
Huastecas, and Moscos of Central America ; in all of 
them the word for north is synonymous with north 
wind, and so on for the other three points of the com- 
pass. Or again, that of the Dakotas, and the word 
tate-ouye-toba, translated "the four quarters of the 
heavens," means literally, " whence the four winds 
come." 1 It were not difficult to extend the list ; but 
illustrations are all that is required. Let it be remem- 
bered how closely the motions of the air are asso- 
ciated in thought and language with the operations 
of the soul and the idea of Grod ; let it further be consi- 
dered what support this association receives from the 
power of the winds on the weather, bringing as they 
do the lightning and the storm, the zephyr that cools 
the brow, and the tornado that levels the forest ; how 
they summon the rain to fertilize the seed and refresh 
the shrivelled leaves ; how they aid the hunter to 
stalk the game, and usher in the varying seasons ; 
how, indeed, in a hundred ways, they intimately con- 
cern his comfort and his life ; and it will not seem 
strange that they almost occupied the place of all 
other gods in the mind of the child of nature. Espe- 
cially as those who gave or withheld the rains were 
they objects of his anxious solicitation. "Ye who 
dwell at the four corners of the earth — at the north, 
at the south, at the east, and at the west," commenced 
the Aztec prayer to the Tlalocs, gods of the showers. 2 

1 Riggs, Gram, and Diet, of the Dakota Lang., s. v. 

2 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, in Kingsborough, v. p. 
375. 



76 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



For they j as it were, hold the food, the life of man 
in their power, garnered up on high, to grant or deny, 
as they see fit. It was from them that the prophet of 
old was directed to call back the spirits of the dead 
to the dry bones of the valley. " Prophesy unto the 
wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus 
saith the Lord God, come forth from the four winds, 
O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may 
live." (Ezek. xxxvii. 9.) 

In the same spirit the priests of the Eskimos prayed 
to Sillam Innua, the Owner of the Winds, as the highest 
existence ; the abode of the dead they called Sillam 
Aipane, the House of the Winds ; and in their incan- 
tations, when they would summon a new soul to the 
sick, or order back to its home some troublesome 
spirit, their invocations were ever addressed to the 
winds from the cardinal points — to Pauna the East 
and Sauna the West, to Kauna the South and Auna 
the North. 1 

As the rain-bringers, as the life-givers, it were no 
far-fetched metaphor to call them the fathers of our 
race. Hardly a nation on the continent but seems to 
have had some vague tradition of an origin from four 
brothers, to have at some time been led by four leaders 
or princes, or in some maimer to have connected the 
appearance and action of four important' personages 
with its earliest traditional history. Sometimes the 
myth defines clearly these fabled characters as. the 
spirits of the winds, sometimes it clothes them in 
uncouth, grotesque metaphors, sometimes again it so 

1 Egede, Nachrichten von Gronland, pp. 137, 173, 285. (Ko- 
penliagen, 1790.) 



THE FOUR ANCESTORS. 



77 



weaves them into actual history that we are at a loss 
where to draw the line that divides fiction from truth. 

I shall attempt to follow step by step the growth 
of this myth from its simplest expression, where the 
transparent drapery makes no pretence to conceal its 
true meaning, through the ever more elaborate narra- 
tives, the more strongly marked personifications of 
more cultivated nations, until it assumes the outlines 
of, and has palmed itself upon the world as actual 
history. 

This simplest form is that which alone appears 
among the Algonkins and Dakotas. They both 
traced their lives back to four ancestors, personages 
concerned in various ways with the first things of 
time, not rightly distinguished as men or gods, but 
very positively identified with the four winds. 
Whether from one or all of these the world was 
peopled, whether by process of generation or some 
other more obscure way, the old people had not said, 
or saying, had not agreed. 1 

It is a shade more complex when we come to the 
Creeks. They told of four men who came from the 
four corners of the earth, who brought them the 
sacred fire, and pointed out the seven sacred plants. 
They were called the Hi-you-yul-gee. Having ren- 
dered them this service, the kindly visitors disap- 
peared in a cloud, returning whence they came. 
When another and more ancient legend informs us 
that the Creeks were at first divided into four clans, 
and alleged a descent from four female ancestors, it 

1 Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. p. 139, and Indian Tribes, 
iv. p. 229. 



78 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



will hardly be venturing too far to recognize in these 
four ancestors the four friendly patrons from the 
cardinal points. 1 

The ancient inhabitants of Haiti, when first dis- 
covered by the Spaniards, had a similar genealogical 
story, which Peter Martyr relates with various 
excuses for its silliness and exclamations at its ab- 
surdity. Perhaps the fault lay less in its lack of 
meaning than in his want of insight. It was to the 
effect that men lived in caves, and were destroyed by 
the parching rays of the sun, and were destitute of 
means to prolong their race, until they caught and 
subjected to their use four women who were swift of 
foot and slippery as eels. These were the mothers 
of the race of men. Or again, it was said that a 
certain king had a huge gourd which contained all 
the waters of the earth ; four brothers, who coming 
into the world at one birth had cost their mother her 
life, ventured to the gourd to fish, picked it up, but 
frightened by the old king's approach, dropped it on 
the ground, broke it into fragments, and scattered the 
waters over the earth, forming the seas, lakes, and 
rivers, as they now are. -These brothers in time 
became the fathers of a nation, and to them they 
traced their lineage. 2 With the previous examples 

1 Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, pp. 81, 82, and Blomes, 
Acc. of his Majesty" 1 s Colonies, p. 156, London, 1687, in Casti- 
glioni, Viaggi nelle Stati JJniti, i. p. 294. 

2 Peter Martyr, Be Beb. Ocean., Dec. i. lib. ix. The story is 
also told more at length by the Brother Romain Pane, in the 
essay on the ancient histories of the natives he drew up by the 
order of Columbus. It has been reprinted with notes by the 
Abbe Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 438 sqq. 



THE FOUR RAIX BRING ERS 



79 



before our eyes, it asks no vivid fancy to see in these 
quaternions once more the four winds, the bringers 
of rain, so swift and so slippery. 

The Navajos are a rude tribe north of Mexico. 
Yet even they have an allegory to the effect that 
when the first man came up from the ground under 
the figure of the moth- worm, the four spirits of the 
cardinal points were already there, and hailed him 
with the exclamation, " Lo, he is of our race." 1 It is 
a poor and feeble effort to tell the same old story. 

The Haitians were probably relatives of the 
Mayas of Yucatan. Certainly the latter shared their 
ancestral legends, for in an ancient manuscript found 
by Mr. Stephens during his travels, it appears they 
looked back to four parents or leaders called the 
Tutul Xiu. But, indeed, this was a trait of all the 
civilized nations of Central America and Mexico. 
An author who would be very unwilling to admit 
any mythical interpretation of the coincidence, has 
adverted to it in tones of astonishment : "In all the 
Aztec and Toltec histories there are four characters 
who constantly reappear ; either as priests or envoys 
of the gods, or of hidden and disguised majesty ; or 
as guides and chieftains of tribes during their migra- 
tions ; or as kings and rulers of monarchies after their 
foundation ; and even to the time of the conquest, there 
are always four princes who compose the supreme 
government, whether in Guatemala, or in Mexico." 2 
This fourfold division points not to a common his- 
tory, but to a common nature. The ancient heroes 

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 89. 

2 Brasseur, Le Liv. Sac, Introd., p. cxvii. 



80 



TEE SACRED NUMBER. 



and demigods, who, four in number, figure in all these 
antique traditions, were not men of flesh and blood, 
but the invisible currents of air who brought the 
fertilizing showers. 

They corresponded to the four gods Bacab, who in 
the Yucatecan mythology were supposed to stand one 
at each corner of the world, supporting, like gigantic 
caryatides, the overhanging firmament. When at the 
general deluge all other gods and men were swallowed 
by the waters they alone escaped to people it anew. 
These four, known by the names of Kan, Muluc, Ix, 
and Cauac, represented respectively the east, north, 
west, and south, and as in Oriental symbolism, so 
here each quarter of the compass was distinguished 
by a color, the east by yellow, the south by red, 
the west by black, and the north by white. The 
names of these mysterious personages, employed 
somewhat as we do the Dominical letters, adjusted 
the calendar of the Mayas, and by- their propitious or 
portentous combinations was arranged their system 
of judicial astrology. They were the gods of rain, 
and under the title Chac, the Eed Ones, were the chief 
ministers of the highest power. As such they were 
represented in the religious ceremonies by four old 
men, constant attendants on the high priest in his 
official functions. 1 In this most civilized branch of 

1 Diego de Landa, Bel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, pp. 160, 206, 
208, ed. Brasseur. The learned editor, in a note to p. 208, states 
erroneously the disposition of the colors, as may be seen by com- 
paring the document on p. 395. This dedication of colors to the 
cardinal points is universal in Central Asia. The geographical 
names of the Eed Sea, the Black Sea, the Yellow Sea or Persian 
Gulf, and the White Sea or the Mediterranean, are derived from 



Q UICHE LEGENDS. 



81 



the red race, as everywhere else, we thus find four 
mythological characters prominent beyond all others, 
giving a peculiar physiognomy to the national 
legends, arts, and sciences, and in them once more 
we recognize by signs infallible, personifications of 
the four cardinal points and the four winds. 

They rarely lose altogether their true character. 
The Quiche legends tell us that the four men who 
were first created by the Heart of Heaven, Hura- 
kan, the Air in Motion, were infinitely keen of ej^e 
and swift of foot, that "they measured and saw all 
that exists at the four corners and the four angles of 
the sky and the earth;" that they did not fulfil the 
design of their maker " to bring forth and produce 
when the season of harvest was near," until he blew 
into their eyes a cloud, " until their faces were ob- 
scured as when one breathes on a mirror." Then he 
gave them as wives the four mothers of our species, 
whose names were Falling Water, Beautiful Water, 
Water of Serpents, and Water of Birds. 1 Truly he 
who can see aught but a transparent myth in this 
recital, is a realist that would astonish Euhemerus 
himself. 

There is in these Aztec legends a quaternion be- 
sides this of the first men, one that bears marks of a 
profound contemplation on the course of nature, one 

this association. The cities of China, many of them at least, 
have their gates which open toward the cardinal points painted 
of certain colors, and precisely these four, the white, the black, 
the red, and the yellow, are those which in Oriental myth the 
mountain in the centre of Paradise shows to the different cardi- 
nal points. (Sepp, Heidenthum und Christenthum, i. p. 177.) 
The coincidence furnishes food for reflection. 
1 Le Livre Sacre des Quiches, pp. 203-5, note. 
6 



82 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



that answers to the former as the heavenly phase of 
the earthly conception. It is seen in the four per- 
sonages, or perhaps we should say modes of action, 
that make up the one Supreme Cause of All, Hura- 
kan, the breath, the wind, the Divine Spirit. They 
are He who creates, He who gives Form, He who 
gives Life, and He who reproduces. 1 This acute and 
extraordinary analysis of the origin and laws of 
organic life, clothed under the ancient belief in the 
action of the winds, reveals a depth of thought for 
which we were hardly prepared, and is perhaps the 
single instance of anything like metaphysics among 
the red race. It is clearly visible in the earlier por- 
tions of the legends of the Quiches, and is the more 
surely of native origin as it has been quite lost on 
both their translators. 

Go where we will, the same story meets us. The 
empire of the Incas was attributed in the sacred 
chants of the Amautas, the priests assigned to take 
charge of the records, to four brothers and their 
wives. These mythical civilizers are said to have 
emerged from a cave called Pacari tampu, which may 
mean "the House of Subsistence," reminding us of the 
four heroes who in Aztec legend set forth to people 
the world from Tonacatepec, the mountain of our 

1 The analogy is remarkable between these and the "quatre 
actes cle la puissance generatrice jusqu'a rentier developpement 
des corps organises," portrayed by four globes in the Mycenean 
bas-reliefs. See Guigniaut, Religions de V Antiquite, i. p. 374. It 
were easy to multiply the instances of such parallelism in the 
growth of religious thought in the Old and New World, but I 
designedly refrain from doing so. They have already given rise 
to false theories enough, and moreover my purpose in this work is 
not "comparative mythology." 



THE ANCESTORS OF THE INC AS. 



83 



subsistence ; or again it may mean — for like many of 
these mythical names it seems to have been design-' 
edly chosen to bear a double construction — the Lodg- 
ings of the Dawn, recalling another Aztec legend 
which points for the birthplace of the race to Tula 
in the distant orient. The cave itself suggests to the 
classical reader that of Eolus, or may be paralleled 
with that in which the Iroquois fabled the winds 
were imprisoned by their lord. 1 These brothers 
were of no common kin. Their voices could shake 
the earth and their hands heap up mountains. Like 
the thunder god, they stood on the hills and hurled 
their sling-stones to the four corners of the earth. 
When one was overpowered he fled upward to the 
heaven or was turned into stone, and it was by their 
aid and counsel that the savages who possessed the 
land renounced their barbarous habits and commenced 
to till the soil. There can be no doubt but that this 
in turn is but another transformation of the Protean 
myth we have so long pursued. 2 

There are traces of the same legend among many 
other tribes of the continent, but the trustworthy 
reports we have of them are too scanty to permit 
analysis. Enough that they are mentioned in a note, 
for it is every way likely that could we resolve their 
meaning they too would carry us back to the four 
winds, 3 

1 Miiller, Amer. Urreligionen, p. 105, after Strahlheim, who is, 
however, no authority. 

2 Miiller, ubi supra, pp. 308 sqq., gives a good resume of the 
different versions of the myth of the four brothers in Peru. 

3 The Tupis of Brazil claim a descent from four brothers, three 
of whose names are given by Hans Staden, a prisoner among 
them about 1550, as Krimen, Hermittan, and Coem ; the latter he 



81 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



Let no one suppose, however, that this was the 
only myth of the origin of man. Far from it. It 
was but one^of many, for, as I shall hereafter attempt 
to show, the laws that governed the formations of 
such myths not only allowed but enjoined great 
divergence of form. Equally far was it from being 
the only image which the inventive fancy hit upon 
to express the action of the winds as the rain bringers. 
They too were many, but may all be included in a 
twofold divisioo, either as the winds were supposed to 
flow in from the corners of the earth or outward from 
its central point. Thus they are spoken of under such 

explains to mean the morning, the east {le matin, printed by 
mistake le mutin, Relation de Hans Staden de Homberg, p. 274, 
ed. Ternaux-Compans, compare Dias, Bice, da Lingua Tupy, p. 
47). Their southern relatives, the Guaranis of Paraguay, also 
spoke of the four brothers and gave two of their names as Tupi 
and Guarani, respectively parents of the tribes called after them 
(Guevara, Hist, del Paraguay, lib. i. cap. ii., in Waitz). The 
fourfold division of the Muyscas of Bogota was traced back to 
four chieftains created by their hero god Nemqueteba (A. von 
Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 246). The Nahuas of Mexico 
much more frequently spoke of themselves as descendants of four 
or eight original families than of seven (Humboldt, ibid., p. 317, 
and others in Waitz, Anthropologie, iv. pp. 36, 37). The Sacs 
or Sauks of the Upper Mississippi supposed that two men and two 
women were first created, and from these four sprang all men 
(Morse, Hep. on Ind. Affairs, App. p. 138). The Ottoes, Paw- 
nees, ' ' and other Indians, ' ' had a tradition that from eight ances- 
tors all nations and races were descended (Id., p. 249). This 
duplication of the number probably arose from assigning the first 
four men four women as wives. The division into clans or 
totems which prevails in most northern tribes rests theoretically 
on descent from" different ancestors. The Shawnees and Natchez 
were divided into four such clans, the Choctaws, Navajos, and 
Iroquois into eight, thus proving that in those tribes also the 
myth I have been discussing was recognized. 



THE CELESTIAL RIVERS. 



85 



figures as four tortoises at the angles of the earthly 
plane who vomit forth the rains, 1 or four gigantic 
caryatides who sustain the heavens and blow the 
winds from their capacious lungs, 2 or more frequently 
as four rivers flowing from the broken calabash on 
high, as the Haitians, draining the waters of the 
primitive world, 3 as four animals who bring from 
heaven the maize, 4 as four messengers whom the god 
of air sends forth, or under a coarser trope as the 
spittle he ejects toward the cardinal points which is 
straightway transformed into wild rice, tobacco, and 
maize. 5 

Constantly from the palace of the lord of the 
world, seated on the high hill of heaven, blow four 
winds, pour four streams, refreshing and fecundating 
the earth. Therefore, in the myths of ancient Iran 
there is mention of a celestial fountain, Arduisur, the 
virgin daughter of Ormuzd, whence four all nour- 
ishing rivers roll their waves toward the cardinal 
points ; therefore the Thibetans believe that on the 
sacred mountain Himavata grows the tree of life 
Zampu, from whose foot once more flow the waters 
of life in four streams to the four quarters of the 
world ; and therefore it is that the same tale is told 
by the Chinese of the mountain Koaantun, by the 
Brahmins of Mount Meru, and by the Parsees of 
Mount Albors in the Caucasus. 6 Each nation called 

1 Mandans in Catlin, Letts, and Notes, i. p. 181. 

2 The Mayas, Cogolluclo, Hist, de Tucathan, lib. iv. cap. 8. 

3 The Navajos, Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 89. 
* The Quiches, Ximenes, Or. de los Indios, p. 79. 

5 The Iroquois, M tiller, Amer. Urreligi'onen, p. 109. 

6 For these myths see Sepp, Das Heideutlium und dessen Be- 



86 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



their sacred mountain "the navel of the earth ;" for 
not only was it the supposed centre of the habitable 
world, but through it, as the foetus through the um- 
bilical cord, the earth drew her increase. Beyond all 
other spots were they accounted fertile, scenes of 
joyous plaisance, of repose, and eternal youth; there 
rippled the waters of health, there blossomed the tree 
of life ; they were fit try sting spots of gods and men. 
Hence came the tales of the terrestrial paradise, the 
rose garden of Feridun, the Eden gardens of the 
world. The name shows the origin, for paradise (in 
Sanscrit, para desa) means literally high land. There, 
in the unanimous opinion of the Orient, dwelt once 
in unalloyed delight the first of men ; thence driven 
by untoward fate, no more anywhere could they find 
the path thither. Some thought that in the north 
among the fortunate Hyperboreans, others that in the 
mountains of the moon where dwelt the long lived 
Ethiopians, and others again that in the furthest east, 
underneath the dawn, was situate the seat of pristine 
happiness; but many were of opinion that some- 
'where in the western sea, beyond the pillars of Her- 
cules and the waters of the Outer Ocean, lay the gar- 
den of the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, the 
earthly Elysion. 

It is not without design that I recall this early 
dream of the religious fancy. When Christopher 
Columbus, fired by the hope of discovering this 
terrestrial paradise, broke the enchantment of the 
cloudy sea and found a new world, it was but to light 

deutung fur dm Christenthum, i. p. Ill sqq. The interpreta- 
tion is of course my own. 



THE EARTHLY PARADISE. 



87 



upon the same race of men, deluding themselves with 
the same hope of earthly joys, the same fiction of a 
long lost garden of their youth. They told him that 
still to the west, amid the mountains of Paria, was a 
spot whence flowed mighty streams over all lands, 
and which in sooth was the spot he sought; 1 and 
when that baseless fabric had vanished, there still 
remained the fabled island of Boiuca, or Bimini, 
hundreds of leagues north of Hispaniola, whose glebe 
was watered by a fountain of such noble virtue as 
to restore youth and vigor to the worn out and the 
aged. 2 This was no fiction of the natives to rid them- 
selves of burdensome guests. Long before the white 
man approached their shores, families had started 
from Cuba, Yucatan, and Honduras in search of these 
renovating waters, and not returning, were supposed 
by their kindred to have been detained by the de- 
lights of that enchanted land, and to be revelling in 
its seductive joys, forgetful of former ties. 3 

•Perhaps it was but another rendering of the same 
belief that pointed to the impenetrable forests of the 
Orinoko, the ancient homes of the Caribs and Ar- 
owacks, and there located the famous realm of El 
Dorado with its imperial capital Manoa, abounding 

1 Peter Martyr, De JReb. Ocean., Dec. iii., lib. ix. p. 195: 
Colon, 1574. 

2 Ibid., Dec. iii., lib. x. p. 202. 

3 Florida was also long supposed to be the site of this wondrous 
spring, and it is notorious that both Juan Ponce de Leon and De 
Soto had some lurking hope of discovering it in their expeditions 
thither. I have examined the myth somewhat at length in Notes 
on the Floridian Peninsula, its Literary History, Indian Tribes, 
and Antiquities, pp. 99, 100 : Philadelphia, 1859. 



88 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



in precious metals and all manner of gems, peopled 
by a. happy race, and governed by an equitable ruler. 

The Aztec priests never chanted more regretful 
dirges than when they sang of Tulan, the cradle of 
their race, where once it dwelt in peaceful indolent 
happiness, whose groves were filled with birds of 
sweet voices and gay plumage, whose generous soil 
brought forth spontaneously maize, cocoa, aromatic 
gums, and fragrant flowers. "Land of riches and 
plenty, where the gourds grow an arm's length across, 
where an ear of corn is a load for a stout man, and 
its stalks are as high as trees ; land where the cotton 
ripens of its own accord of all rich tints ; land 
abounding with limpid emeralds, turquoises, * gold, 
and silver." 1 This land was also called Tlalocan, 
from Tlaloc, the god of rain, who there had his 
dwelling place, and Tlapallan, the land of colors, or 
the red land, for the hues of the sky at sunrise floated 
over it. Its inhabitants were surnamecl children of 
the air, or of Quetzalcoatl, and from its centre rose 
the holy mountain Tonacatepec,- the mountain of our 
life or subsistence. Its supposed location was in the 
east, whence in that country blow the winds that 
bring mild rains, says Sahagun, and that missionary 
was himself asked, as coming from the east, whether 
his home was in Tlapallan; more definitely by some 
it was situated among the lofty peaks on the frontiers 
of Guatemala, and all the great rivers that water the 
earth were supposed to have their sources there. 2 
But here, as elsewhere, its site was not determined. 

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. iii. cap. iii. 

2 Le Livre Sacre des Quiches, Introd., p. clviii. 



THE EARTHLY PARADISE. 



80 



" There is a Tulan," says an ancient authority, 
" where the sun rises, and there is another in the land 
of shades, and another where the sun reposes, and 
thence came we ; and still another where the sun re- 
poses, and there dwells God." 1 

The myth of the Quiches but changes the name of 
this pleasant land. With them it was Pan-paxil-pa- 
cayala, where the waters divide in falling, or between 
the waters parcelled out and mucky. This was " an 
excellent land, full of pleasant things, where was 
store of white corn and yellow corn, where one could 
not count the fruits, nor estimate the quantity of 
honey and food." Over it ruled the lord of the air, 

1 Memorial cle Tecpan Atitlan, in Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, 
i. p. 167. The derivation of Tulan, or Tula, is extremely un- 
certain. The Abbe Brasseur sees in it the ultima Tliule of the 
ancient geographers, which suits his idea of early American his- 
tory. Hernando De Soto found a village of this name on the 
Mississippi, or near it. But on looking into Gallatin's vocabula- 
ries, tutta turns out to be the Choctaw word for stone, and as De 
Soto was then in the Choctaw country, the coincidence is ex- 
plained at once. Buschmann, who spells it Tollan, takes it from 
tolin, a rush, and translates, juncetum, Ort der Binsen. Ueber 
die Aztekischen Orstnamen, p. 682. Those who have attempted 
to make history from these mythological fables have been much 
puzzled about the location of this mystic land. Humboldt has 
placed it on the northwest Coast, Cabrera at Palenque, Clavigero 
north of Anahuac, etc. etc. Aztlan, literally, the White Land, 
is another name of wholly mythical purport, which it would be 
equally vain to seek on the terrestrial globe. In the extract in 
the text, the word translated God is Qabavil, an old word for the 
highest god, either from a root meaning to open, to disclose, or 
from one of similar form signifying to wonder, to marvel ; lite- 
rally, therefore, the Revealer, or the Wondrous One ( Vocab. de 
la Lengua 'Quiche, p. 209 : Paris, 1862). 



90 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



and from it the four sacred animals carried the corn 
to make the flesh of men. 1 

Once again, in the legends of the Mixtecas, Ave 
hear the old story repeated of the garden where the 
first two brothers dwelt. It lay between a meadow 
and that lofty peak which supjDorts the heavens and 
the palaces of the gods. " Many trees were there, 
such as yield flowers and roses, very luscious fruits, 
divers herbs, and aromatic spices." The names of 
the brothers were the- Wind of Nine Serpents and 
the Wind of Nine Caverns. The first was as an 
eagle, and flew aloft over the waters' that poured 
around their enchanted garden ; the second was as a 
serpent with wings, who proceeded with such velocity 
that he pierced rocks and walls. They were too swift 
to be seen by the sharpest eye, and were one near as 
they passed, he was only aware of a whisper and a 
rustling like that of the wind in the leaves. 2 

Wherever, in short, the 'lust of gold lured the early 
* adventurers, they were told of some nation a little 
further on, some- wealthy and prosperous land, abun- 
dant and fertile, satisfying the desire of the heart. 
It was sometimes deceit, and it was sometimes the 
credited fiction of the earthly paradise, that in all 
ages has with a promise of perfect joy consoled the 
aching heart of man. 

It is instructive to study the associations that natu- 
rally group themselves around each of the cardinal 
points, and watch how these are mirrored on the 
surface of language, and have directed the current of 

1 Xiinenes, Or. de los Indios, p. 80, Le Lime Sacre, p. 195. 

2 Garcia, Origen de los Indios, lib. iv. cap. 4. 



THE CARDINAL .POINTS. 



91 



thought. Jacob Grimm has performed this task with 
fidelity and beauty as regards the Aryan race, but 
the means are wanting to apply his searching method 
to the indigenous tongues of America. Enough if 
in general terms their mythological value be deter- 
mined. 

When the day begins, man wakes from his slum- 
bers, faces the rising sun, and prays. The east is 
before him ;■ by it he learns all other directions ; it is 
to him what the north is to the needle; with refe- 
rence to it he assigns in his mind the position of the 
three other cardinal points. 1 There is the starting 
place of the celestial fires, the home of the sun, the 
womb of the morning. It represents in space the 
beginning of things in time, and as the bright and 
glorious creatures of the sky come forth thence, man 
conceits that his ancestors also in remote ages wan- 
dered from the orient ; there in the opinion of many 
in both the old and new world was the cradle of the 
race ; there in Aztec legend was the fabled land of 
Tlapallan, and the wind from the east was called the 
wind of Paradise, Tlalocavitl. 

From this direction came, according to the almost 
unanimous opinion of the Indian tribes, those hero 
gods who taught them arts and religion, thither they 
returned, and from thence they would, again appear 
to resume their ancient sway. As the dawn brings 
light, and with light is associated in every human mind 
the ideas of knowledge, safety, protection, majesty, 
divinity, as it dispels the spectres of night, as it 

1 Compare the German expression sich orientiren, to right one- 
self hy the east, to understand one's surroundings. 



92 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



defines the cardinal points, and brings forth the sun 
and the day, it occupied the primitive mind to an ex- 
tent that can hardly be magnified beyond the truth. 
It is in fact the central figure in most natural religions. 

The west, as the grave of the heavenly lumina- 
ries, or rather as their goal and place of repose, 
brings with it thoughts of sleep, of death, of tran- 
quillity, of rest from labor. When the evening of 
his days was come, when his course was run, and man 
had sunk from sight, he was supposed to follow the 
sun and find some spot of repose for his tired soul 
in the distant west. There, with general consent, the 
tribes north of the Gulf of Mexico supposed the 
happy hunting grounds ; there, taught by the same 
analogy, the ancient Aryans placed the Nerriti, the 
exodus, the land of the dead. " The old notion 
among us," said on one occasion a distinguished chief 
of the Creek nation, " is that when we die, the spirit 
goes the way the sun goes, to the' west, and there 
joins its family and friends who went before it." 1 

In the northern hemisphere the shadows fall to the 
north, thence blow cold and furious winds, thence 
come the snow and early" thunder. Perhaps all its 
primitive inhabitants, of whatever race, thought it 
the seat of the mighty gods. 2 A floe of ice in the 
Arctic Sea was the home of the guardian spirit of the 
Algonkins ; 3 on a mountain near the north star the 
Dakotas thought Hey oka dwelt who rules the seasons ; 
and the realm of Mictla, the Aztec god of death, lay 
where the shadows pointed. From that cheerless 

1 Hawkins, Sketch of the Greek Country, p. 80. 

2 See Jacob Grimm, Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, p. 681. 

3 De Smet, Oregon Missions, p. 352. 



NAMES OF THE CARDINAL POINTS. 



93 



abode his sceptre reached over all creatures, even the 
gods themselves, for sooner or later all must fall 
before him. The great spirit of the dead, said the 
Ottawas, lives in the dark north, 1 and there, in the 
opinion of the Monquis of California, resided their 
chief god, Grumongo.^ 

Unfortunately the makers of vocabularies have 
rarely included the words north, south, east, and 
west, in their lists, and the methods of expressing 
these ideas adopted by the Indians can only be par- 
tially discovered. The east and west were usually 
called from the rising and setting of the sun as in our 
words orient and Occident, but occasionally, from 
traditional notions. The Mayas named the west the 
greater, the east the lesser debarkation; believing 
that while their culture hero Zamna came from the 
east with a few attendants, the mass of the population 
arrived from the opposite direction. 3 The Aztecs 
spoke of the east as " the direction of Tlalocan," the 
terrestrial paradise. But for north and south there 
were no such natural appellations, and consequently 
the greatest diversity is exhibited in the plans 
adopted to express them. The north in the Caddo 
tongue is "the place of cold," in Dakota "the situa- 
tion of the pines," in Creek " the abode of the (north) 
star," in Algonkin " the home of the soul," in Aztec 
"the direction of Mictla" the realm of death, in 
Quiche and Quichua, "to the right hand;"" 1 while for 

1 Bressani, Relation Abrege, p. 93. 

2 Venegas, Hist, of California, i. p. 91 : London, 1759. 

3 Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. iii. 

4 Alexander von Humboldt lias asserted that the Quichuas had 
other and very circumstantial terms to express the cardinal points 
drawn from the positions of the sun (Ansichten der Natur, ii. p. 



94 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



the south we find such terms as in Dakota " the 
downward direction," in Algonkin " the place of 
warmth," in Quiche "to the left hand," while among 
the Eskimos, who look in this direction for the sun, 
its name implies "before one," just as does the 
Hebrew word kedem, which, however, this more 
southern tribe applied to the east. 

We can trace the sacredness of the number four in 
other curious and unlooked-for developments. Mul- 
tiplied into the number of the fingers — the arithmetic 
of every child and ignorant man — or by adding 
together the first four members of its arithmetical 
series (4-J-8-hl2-f 16), it gives the number forty. 
This was taken as a limit to the sacred dances of some 
Indian tribes, and by others as the highest number of 
chants to be employed in exorcising diseases. Con- 
sequently it came to be fixed as a limit in exercises 
of preparation or purification. The females of the 
Orinoko tribes fasted forty days before marriage, and 
those of the upper Mississippi were held unclean the 
same length of time after childbirth; such was the 
term of the Prince of Tezcuco's fast when he wished 
an heir to his throne, and such the number of days 
the Mandans supposed it required to wash clean the 
world at the deluge. 1 - j 

368). But the distinguished naturalist overlooked the literal 
meaning of the phrases he quotes for north and south, intip chau- 
tuta chayanawpata and intip chaupuncliau cliayananpata, lite- 
rally, the sun arriving toward the midnight, the sun arriving 
toward the midday. These are evidently translations of the 
Spanish hacia la media noclie, hacia el medio dia, for they could 
not have originated among a people under or south of the equa- 
torial line. 

1 Catlin, Letters and Notes, i., Letter 22 ; La Hontan, Memoires, 
ii. p. 151 ; Gumilla, Hist, del Orinoco, p. 159. 



THE SYMBOL OF THE CROSS. 



95 



No one is ignorant how widely this belief was 
prevalent in the old world, nor how the quadrigesi- 
mal is still a sacred term with some denominations of 
Christianity. But a more striking parallelism awaits 
us. The symbol that beyond all others has fascinated 
the human mind, the ceoss, finds here its source and 
meaning. Scholars have pointed out its sacredness 
in many natural religions, and have reverently 
accepted it as a mystery, or offered scores of conflict- 
ing and often debasing interpretations. It is but ' 
another symbol of the four cardinal points, the four 
winds of heaven. This will luminously appear by a 
study of its use and meaning in America. 

The Catholic missionaries found it was no new 
object of adoration to the red race, and were in doubt 
whether to ascribe the fact to the pious labors of 
Saint Thomas or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. 
It was the central object in the great temple of Cozu- 
mel, and is still preserved on the bas-reliefs of the 
ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it 
had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs 
and Toltecs, and was suspended as an august emblem 
from the walls of temples in Popoyan and Cundina- 
marca. In the Mexican tongue it bore the significant 
and worthy name "Tree of Our Life," or "Tree of 
our Flesh" (Tonacaquahuitl). It represented the god 
of rains and of health, and this was everywhere its 
simple meaning. " Those of Yucatan," say the 
chroniclers, " prayed to the cross as the god of rains 
when they needed water." The Aztec goddess of rains 
bore one in her hand, and at the feast celebrated to 
her honor in the early spring victims were nailed to 
a cross and shot with arrows. Quetzalcoatl, god of 



96 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



the winds, bore as bis sign of office " a mace like the 
cross of a bishop ;" his robe was covered with them 
strown like flowers, and its adoration was throughout 
connected with his worship. 1 When the Muyscas 
would sacrifice to the goddess of waters they extended 
cords across the tranquil depths of some lake, thus 
forming a gigantic cross, and at their point of inter- 
section threw in their offerings of gold, emeralds, and 
precious oils. 2 The arms of the cross were designed 
to point to the cardinal points and represent the four 
winds, the rain bringers. To confirm this explana- 
tion, let us have recourse to the simpler ceremonies 
of the less cultivated tribes, and see the transparent 
meaning of the symbol as they employed it. 

"When the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape would 
exert his power, he retired to some secluded spot and 
drew upon the earth the figure of a cross (its arms 
toward the cardinal points?), placed upon it a piece 
of tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and com- 
menced to cry aloud to the spirits of the rains. 3 The 
Creeks at the festival of the Busk, celebrated, as we 
have seen, to the four winds, and according to their 
legends instituted by them, commenced with making 

1 On the worship of the cross in Mexico and Yucatan and its 
invariable meaning as representing the gods of rain, consult 
Ixtlilxochitl, Hist, des Chichimeques, p. 5 ; Sahagun, Hist, de la 
JVueva Hspana, lib. i. cap. ii. ; Garcia, Or. de los Indios, lib. iii. 
cap. vi. p. 109; Palacios, Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala, p. 29 ; 
Cogolludo, Hist, de Yueatlian, lib. iv. cap. ix. ; Yillagutierre 
Sotomayor, Hist, de el Itza y de el Lacandon, lib. iii. cap. 8 ; and 
many others might be mentioned. 

2 Rivero and Tschudi, Peruvian Antiquities, p. 162, after J. 
Acosta. 

3 Loskiel, Ges. der Miss, der evang. Bruder, p. 60. 



THE SYMBOL OF THE CROSS. 



97 



the new fire. The manner of this was " to place four 
logs in the centre of the square, end to end, forming 
a cross, the outer ends pointing to the cardinal points ; 
in the centre of the cross the new fire is made." 1 

As the emblem of the winds who dispense the fertil- 
izing showers it is emphatically the tree of our life, our 
subsistence, and our health. It never had any other 
meaning in America, and if, as has been said, 2 the 
tombs of the Mexicans were cruciform, it was per- 
haps with reference to a resurrection and a future life 
as portrayed under this symbol, indicating that the 
buried body would rise by the action of the four 
spirits of the world, as the buried seed takes on a new 
existence when watered by the vernal showers. It 
frequently recurs in the ancient Egyptian writings, 
where it is interpreted life ; doubtless, could we trace 
the hieroglyph to its source, it would likewise prove 
to be derived from the four winds. 

While thus recognizing the natural origin of this 
consecrated symbol, while discovering that it is based 
on the sacredness of numbers, and this in turn on 

1 Hawkins, Sketch of the Greek Country, p. 75. Lapham and 
Pidgeon mention that in the State of Wisconsin many low mounds 
are found in the form of a cross with the arms directed to the car- 
dinal points. They contain no remains. Were they not altars 
built to the Four Winds ? In the mythology of the Dakotas, who 
inhabited that region, the winds were always conceived as birds, 
and for the cross they have a native name literally signifying 
4 'the niusquito hawk spread out" (Riggs, Diet, of the Dakota, 
s. v.). Its Maya name is vahom che, the tree erected or set up, 
the adjective being drawn from the military language and im- 
plying as a defence or protection, as the warrior lifts his lance or 
shield (Landa, Bel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 65). 

2 Squier, The Serpent Symbol in America, p. 98. 

7 



98 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



the structure and necessary relations of the human 
body, thus disowning the meaningless mysticism that 
Joseph de Maistre and his disciples have advocated, let 
us on the other hand be equally on our guard against 
accepting the material facts which underlie these 
beliefs as their deepest foundation and their exhaus- 
tive explanation. That were but withered fruit for 
our labors, and it might well be asked, where is here 
the divine idea said to be dimly prefigured in mytho- 
logy? The universal belief in the sacredness of 
numbers is an instinctive faith in an immortal truth ; 
it is a direct perception of the soul, akin to that which 
recognizes a God. The laws of chemical combina- 
tion, of the various modes of motion, of all organic 
growth, show that simple numerical relations govern 
all the properties and are inherent to the very con- 
stitution of matter ; more marvellous still, the most 
recent and severe inductions of physicists show that 
precisely those two numbers on whose symbolical 
value much of the edifice of ancient mythology was 
erected, the four and the three, regulate the molecu- 
lar distribution of matter and preside over the sym- 
metrical development of organic forms. This asks no 
faith, but only knowledge ; it is science, not revela- 
tion. In view of such facts is it presumptuous to 
predict that experiment itself will prove the truth of 
Kepler's beautiful saying : " The universe is a har- 
monious whole, the soul of which is God ; numbers, 
figures, the stars, all nature, indeed, are in unison 
with the mysteries of religion" ? 



CHAPTEE IV. 



THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 

Relations of man to the lower animals. — Two of these, the Bird and the 
Serpent, chosen as symbols beyond all others. — The Bird throughout 
America the sj'tnbol of the Clouds and Winds. — Meaning of certain 
species. — The symbolic meaning of the Serpent derived from its mode 
of locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its power of charming. — Usually 
the symbol of the Lightning and the Waters. — The Rattlesnake 
the symbolic species in America. — The war charm. — The Cross of 
Palenque. — The god of riches. — Both symbols devoid of moral signi- 
ficance. 

FJ1HOSE stories which the Germans call Thierfabehi, 
wherein the actors are different kinds of brutes, 
seem to have a particular relish for children and un- 
cultivated nations. Who cannot recall with what 
delight he nourished his childish fancy on. the pranks 
of Keynard the Fox, or the tragic adventures of 
Little Eed Eiding Hood and the Wolf? Every na- 
tion has a congeries of such tales, and it is curious to 
mark' how the same animal reappears with the same 
imputed physiognomy in all of them. The fox is 
always cunning, the wolf ravenous, the owl wise, and 
the ass foolish. The question has been raised whether 
such traits were at first actually ascribed to animals, 
or whether their introduction in story was intended 
merely as an agreeable figure of speech for classes of 
men. We cannot doubt but that the former was the 
case. Going back to the dawn of civilization, we 
find these relations not as amusing fictions, but as 



100 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPEXT. 



myths, embodying religions tenets, and the brute 
heroes held up as the ancestors of mankind, even as 
rightful claimants of man's prayers and praises. 

Man, the paragon of animals, praying to the beast, 
is a spectacle so humiliating that, for the sake of our 
common humanity, we may seek the explanation of it 
least degrading to the dignity of our race. We must 
remember that as a hunter the primitive man was al- 
ways matched against the wild creatures of the woods, 
so superior to him in their dumb certainty of instinct, 
their swift motion, their muscular force, their perma- 
nent and sufficient clothing. Their ways were guided 
by a wit beyond his divination, and they gained a 
living with little toil or trouble. They did not mind 
the darkness so terrible to him, but through the night 
called one to the other in a tongue whose meaning he 
could not fathom, but which, he doubted not, was as 
full of purport as his own. He did not recognize in 
himself those god-like qualities destined to endow - 
him with the royalty of the world, while far more 
clearly than we do he saw the sly and strange facul- 
ties of his antagonists. They were to him, therefore, 
not inferiors, but equals — even superiors. He doubted 
not that once upon a time he had possessed their in- 
stinct, they his language, but that some necromantic 
spell had been flung on them both to keep them 
asunder. None but a potent sorcerer could break 
this charm, but such an one could understand the 
chants of birds and the howls of savage beasts, and 
on occasion transform himself into one or another 
animal, and course the forest, the air, or the waters, 
as he saw fit. Therefore, it was not the beast that he 



ORIGIN OF THE BIRD SYMBOL. 



101 



worshipped, but that share of the omnipresent deity 
which he thought he perceived under its form. 1 

Beyond all others, two subdivisions of the animal 
kingdom have so riveted the attention of men by 
their unusual powers, and enter so frequently into 
the myths of every nation of the globe, that a right 
understanding of their symbolic value is an essential 
preliminary to the discussion of the divine legends. 
They are the Bied and the Serpent. We shall not 
go amiss if we seek the reasons of their pre-eminence 
in the facility with which their peculiarities offered 
sensuous images under which to convey the idea of 
divinity, ever present in the soul of man, ever striving 
at articulate expression. 

The bird has the incomprehensible power of flight ; 
it floats in the atmosphere, it rides on the winds, it 
soars toward heaven where dwell the gods ; its 
plumage is stained with the hues of the rainbow and 
the sunset; its song was man's first hint of music; it 
spurns the clouds that impede his footsteps, and flies 
proudly over the mountains and moors where he 
toils wearily along. He sees no more enviable crea- 
ture; he conceives the gods and angels must also 
have wings; and pleases himself with the fancy that 
he, too, some day will shake off this coil of clay, 
and rise on pinions to the heavenly mansions. All 
living beings, say the Eskimos, have the faculty of 
soul (tarrak), but especially the birds. 2 As messen- 
gers from the upper world and interpreters of its 

1 That these were the real views entertained by the Indians in 
regard to the brute creation, see Heckewelder, Acc. of the Ind. 
Nations, p. 247 ; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iii. p. 520. 

2 Egede, Nachvicliten von Gronland, p. 156. 



102 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT 

decrees, the flight and the note of birds have ever 
been anxiously observed as omens of grave import. 

There is one bird especially," remarks the traveller 
Coreal, of the natives of Brazil, " which they regard 
as of good augury." Its mournful chant is heard 
rather by night than day. The savages ^say it is sent » 
by their deceased friends to bring them news from 
the other world, and to encourage them against their 
enemies." 1 In Peru and in Mexico there was a 
College of Augurs, corresponding in purpose to the 
auspices of ancient Eome, who practised no other 
means of divination than watching the course and 
professing to interpret the songs of fowls. So natural 
and so general is such a superstition, and so wide- 
spread is the respect it still obtains in civilized and 
Christian lands, that it is not worth while to summon 
witnesses to show that it prevailed universally among 
the red race also. What imprinted it with redoubled 
force on their imagination was the common belief 
that birds were not only divine nuncios, but the 
visible spirits of their departed friends. The Pow- 
hatans held that a certain small wood bird received 
the souls of their princes at death, and they refrained 
religiously from doing it harm; 2 while the Aztecs 
and. various other nations thought that all good 
people, as a reward of merit, were metamorphosed at 
the close of life into feathered songsters of the grove, 
and in this form passed a certain term in the um- 
brageous bowers of Paradise. 

Bat the usual meaning of the bird as a symbol 

1 Voiages aux hides OccidentaUs, pt. ii. p. 203 : Arrist. 1722. 

2 Beverly, Hist, de la Virginie, liv. iii. chap. viii. 



THE WINDS AS BIRDS. 



103 



looks to a different analogy — to that which appears 
in such familiar expressions as "the wings of the 
wind," "the flying clouds." Like the wind, the bird 
sweeps through the aerial spaces, sings in the forests, 
and rustles on its course ; like the cloud, it floats in 
mid-air and casts its shadow on the earth ; like the 
lightning, it darts from heaven to earth to strike its 
unsuspecting prey. These tropes were truths to 
savage nations, and led on by that law of language . 
which forced them to conceive everything as animate 
or inanimate, itself the product of a deeper law of 
thought which urges us to ascribe life to whatever 
has motion, they found no animal, so appropriate for 
their purpose here as the bird. Therefore the Algon- 
kins say that birds always make the winds, that they 
create the water spouts, and that the clouds are the 
spreading and agitation of their wings; 1 the Nava- 
jos, that at each cardinal point stands a white swan, 
who is the spirit of the blasts which blow from its 
dwelling ; and the Dakotas, that in the west is the 
house of the Wakinyan, the Flyers, the breezes that 
send the storms. So, also, they frequently explain 
the thunder' as the sound of the cloud-bird flapping 
his wings, and the lightning as the fire that flashes 
from his tracks, like the sparks which the buffalo 
scatters when he scours over a stony plain. 2 The 

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420. 

2 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 191 : New York, 
1849. This is a trustworthy and meritorious book, which can be 
said of very few collections' of Indian traditions. They were 
colle'cted during a residence of seven years in our northwestern 
territories, and are usually verbally faithful to the native narra- 
tions. 



104 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 

thunder cloud was also a bird to the Caribs, and they 
imagined it produced the lightning in true Carib 
fashion by blowing it through a hollow reed, just as 
they to this day hurl their poisoned darts. 1 Tupis, 
Iroquois, Athapascas, for certain, perhaps all the 
families of the red race, were the subject pursued, 
partook of this persuasion ; among them all it would 
probably be found that the same figures of speech 
were used in comparing clouds and winds with the 
feathered species as among us, with however this 
most significant difference, that whereas among us 
they are figures and nothing more, to them they ex- 
pressed literal facts. 

How important a symbol did they thus become ! 
For the winds, the clouds, producing the thunder 
and the changes that take place in the ever-shifting 
panorama of the sky, the rain bringers, lords of the 
seasons, and not this only, but the primary type of 
the soul, the life, the breath of man and the world, 
these in their role in mythology are second to nothing. 
Therefore as the symbol of these august powers,' 
as messenger of the gods, and as the embodiment of 
departed spirits, no one will be surprised if they find 
the bird figure most prominently in the myths of the 
red race. 

Sometimes some particular species seems to have 
been chosen as most befitting these dignified attri- 
butes. ISTo citizen of the United States will be 
apt to assert that their instinct led the indigenes of 
our territory astray when they chose with nigh 
unanimous consent the great American eagle as that 



1 Miiller, Amer. Urreligionen, p. 222, after De la Borde. 



THE EAGLE AND THE OWL. 



105 



fowl be} r ond all others proper to typify the supreme 
control and the most admirable qualities. Its feathers 
composed the war flag of the Creeks, and its images 
carved in wood or its stuffed, skin surmounted their 
council lodges (Bartram) ; none but an approved 
warrior dare wear it among the Cherokees (Timber- 
lake) ; and the Dakotas allowed such an honor only 
to him who had first touched the corpse of the com- 
mon foe (De Smet). The Natchez and Akanzas seem 
to have paid it even religious honors, and to have 
installed it in their most sacred shrines (Sieur de 
Tonty, Du Pratz); and very clearly it was not so 
much for ornament as for a mark of dignity and a 
recognized sign of worth that its plumes were so 
highly prized. The natives of Zuni, in New Mexico, 
employed four of its feathers to represent the four 
winds in their invocations for rain (Whipple), and 
probably it was the eagle which a tribe in Upper 
California (the Acagchemem) worshipped under the 
name Panes. Father Geronimo Boscana describes it 
as a species of vulture, and relates that one of them 
was immolated yearly, with solemn ceremony, in the 
temple of each village. Not a drop of blood was 
spilled, and the body burned. Yet with an amount 
of faith that staggered even the Eomanist, the natives 
maintained and believed that it was the same indi- 
vidual bird they sacrificed each year ; more than this, 
that the same bird was slain by each of the villages! 1 
The owl was regarded by Aztecs, Quiches, Mayas, 

1 Acc. of the Inds. of California, ch. ix. Eng. trans, by Robin- 
son : New York, 1847. The Acagchemem were a branch of the 
Netela tribe, who dwelt near the mission San Juan Capistrano 
(see Buschmann, Spuren der Aztek. Sprache, etc., p. 548). 



106 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



— Peruvians, Araucairians, and Algonkins as sacred to 
the lord of the dead. "The Owl" was one of the 
names of the Mexican Pluto, whose realm was in 
the north, 1 and the wind fronr that quarter was sup- 
posed by the Chipeways to be made by the owl as 
the south by the butterfly. 2 As the bird of night, it 
was the fit emissary of him who rules the darkness 
of the grave. Something in the looks of the crea- 
ture as it sapiently stares and blinks in the light, or 
perhaps that it works while others sleep, got for it 
the character of wisdom. So the Creek priests carried 
with them as the badge of their learned profession 
-^_-the stuffed skin of one of t^ese birds, thus modestly 
hinting their erudite turn of mind, 3 and the culture 
hero of the Monquis of California was represented, 
like Pallas Athene, having one as his inseparable 
companion (Venegas). 

As the associate of the god of light and air, and as 
— the antithesis therefore of the owl, the Aztecs reve- 
renced a bird called quetzal, which I believe is a 
species of parroquet. Its plumage is of a bright 
green hue, and was prized extravagantly as a decora- 
tion. It was one of the 'symbols and part of the 

1 Called in the Aztec tongue. Tecolotl, night owl ; literally, the 
stone scorpion. The transfer was mythological. The Christians 
prefixed to this word tlaca, man, and thus formed a name for 
Satan, which Prescott and others have translated "rational owl." 
No such deity existed in ancient Anahuac (see Buschmann, Die 
Voelker und Sprachen Neu Mexico's, p. 262). 

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420. 

3 William Bartram, Travels, p. 504. Columbus found the 
natives of the Antilles wearing tunics with figures of these 
birds embroidered upon them. Prescott, Conq. of Mexico, i. p. 
58, note. 



THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE. 



107 



name of Quetzalcoatl, their mythical civilizer, and 
the prince of all sorts of singing birds t myriads of 
whom were fabled to accompany him on his journeys. 

The tender and hallowed associations that have so 
widely shielded the dove from harm, which for 
instance Xenophon mentions among the ancient Per- 
sians, were not altogether unknown to the tribes of 
the New World. Neither the Hurons nor Mandans 
would kill them, for they believed they were inha- 
bited by the souls of the departed, 1 and it is said, but 
on less satisfactory authority, that they enjoyed simi- 
lar immunity among the Mexicans. Their soft and 
plaintive note and sober russet hue widely enlisted 
the sympathy of man, and linked them with his more 
tender feelings. 

"As wise as the serpent, as harmless as the dove," 
is an antithesis that might pass current in any human 
language. They are the emblems of complementary, 
often contrasted qualities. Of all animals, the ser- 
pent is the most mysterious. No wonder it possessed 
the fancy of the observant child of nature. Alone 
of creatures it swiftly progresses without feet, fins, 
or wings. " There be three things which are too 
wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not," said 
wise King Solomon ; and the chief of them were, 
"the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent 
upon a rock." 

Its sinuous course is like to nothing so much as 
that of a winding river, which therefore we often 
call serpentine. So did the Indians. Kennebec, a 

1 Bel. de la Noun. France, An 1636, ch. ix. Catlin, Letters 
and Notes, Lett. 22. . 



108 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND TEE SERPENT. 

stream in Maine, in the Algonkin means snake, and 
Antietam, the creek in Maryland of tragic celebrity, 
in an Iroquois dialect has the same significance. 
How easily would savages, construing the figure lite- 
rally, make the serpent a river or water god ! Many 
species being amphibious would confirm the idea. 
A lake watered by innumerable tortuous rills wrig- 
gling into it, is well calculated for the fabled abode 
of the king of the snakes. Thus doubtless it hap- 
pened that both Algonkins and Iroquois had a myth 
that in the great lakes dwelt a monster serpent, of 
irascible temper, who unless appeased by meet offer- 
ings raised a tempest or broke the ice beneath the 
feet of those venturing on his domain, and swallowed 
them down. 1 

The rattlesnake was the species almost exclusively 
honored by the red race. It is slow to attack, but 
venomous in the extreme^ and possesses the power of 
the basilisk to attract within reach of its spring small 
birds and squirrels. Probably this much talked of 
fascination is nothing more than by its presence near 
their nests to incite them to attack, and to hazard 
near and nearer approaches to their enemy in hope 
to force him to retreat, until once within the compass 
of his fell swoop they fall victims to their temerity. 
I have often watched a cat act thus. Whatever ex- 
planation may be received, the fact cannot be ques- 
tioned, and is ever attributed by the unreflecting, to 
some diabolic spell cast upon them by the animal. 

1 Bel. de la Nouv. France, An 1648, p. 75 ; Cusic, Trad. Hist, 
of the Six Nations, pt. iii. The latter is the work of a native 
Tuscarora chief. It is republished in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, 
but is of little value. 



THE RATTLESNAKE. 



109 



They have the same strange susceptibility to the 
influence of certain sounds as the vipers, in which 
lies the secret of snake charming. Most of the In- 
dian magicians were familiar with this singularity. 
They employed it with telling effect to put beyond 
question their intercourse with the unseen powers, 
and to vindicate the potency of their own guardian 
spirits who thus enabled them to handle with im- 
punity the most venomous of reptiles. 1 The well- 
known antipathy of these serpents to certain plants, 
for instance the hazel, which bound around the 
ankles is an efficient protection against their attacks, 
and perhaps some antidote to their poison used by 
the magicians, led to their frequent introduction in 
religious ceremonies. Such exhibitions must have 
made a profound impression on the spectators, and 
redounded in a corresponding degree to the glory of 
the performer. " Who is a manito ?" asks the mystic 
meda chant of the Algonkins. " He," is the reply, 
" he who walketh with a serpent, walking on the 
ground, he is a manito." 2 And the intimate alliance 
of this symbol with the most sacred mysteries of re- 

1 For example, in Brazil, Miiller, Amer. Urrelig., p. 277; in 
Yucatan, Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 4 ; among 
'the western Algonkins, Hennepin, Decouverte dans V Amer. Sep- 
ten. chap. 33. Dr. Hammond has expressed the opinion that the 
North American Indians enjoy the same immunity from the 
virus of the rattlesnake, that certain African tribes do from some 
vegetable poisons (Hygiene, p. 73). But his observation must be 
at fault, for many travellers mention the dread these serpents 
inspired, and the frequency of death from their bites, e. g. Bel. 
Now. France, 1667, p. 22. 

2 Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, 
p. 356. 



110 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AXD THE SERPENT 



ligion, the darkest riddles of the Unknown, is re- 
flected in their language, and also in that of their 
neighbors the Dakotas, in both of which the same 
words manito, wakan, which express divinity in its 
broadest sense, are also used as generic terms signify- 
ing this species of animals ! This strange fact is not 
without a parallel, for in both Arabic and Hebrew, 
the word for serpent has many derivatives, meaning 
to have intercourse with demoniac powers, to practise 
magic, and to consult familiar spirits. 1 

The pious founder of the Moravian brotherhood, 
the Count of Zinzendorf, owed his life on one occasion 
to this deeply rooted superstition. He -was visiting 
a missionary station among the Shawnees, in the 
Wyoming valley. Eecent quarrels with the whites 
had unusually irritated this unruly folk, and they re- 
solved to make him their first victim. After he had 
retired to his secluded hut, several of their braves 
crept upon him, and cautiously lifting the corner of 
the lodge, peered in. The venerable man was seated 
before a little fire, a volume of the Scriptures on his 
knees, lost in the perusal of the sacred words. While 
they gazed, a huge rattlesnake, unnoticed by him, 
trailed across his feet, and rolled itself into a coil in 
the comfortable warmth of the fire. Immediately 
the would-be murderers forsook their purpose and 

1 See Gallatin's vocabularies in the second volume of the 
Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc. under the word Snake. In Arabic dzann 
is serpent ; dzanan a spirit, a soul, or the heart. So in Hebrew 
nachas, serpent, has many derivatives signifying to hold inter- 
course with demons, to conjure, a magician, etc. See Noldeke in 
the Zeitschrift fur Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenscliaft, 
i. p. 413. 



THE SYMBOLS OF LIFE AND TIME. 



Ill 



noiselessly retired, convinced that this was indeed a 
man of God. 

A more unique trait than any of these is its habit 
of casting its skin every spring, thus as it were re- 
newing its life. In temperate latitudes the rattle- 
snake, like the leaves and flowers, retires from sight 
during the cold season, and at the return of kindly 
warmth pats on a new and brilliant coat. Its cast-off 
skin was carefully collected by the savages and stored 
in the medicine bag as possessing remedial powers of 
high excellence. Itself thus immortal, they thought 
it could impart its vitality to them. So when the 
mother was travailing in sore pain, and the danger 
neared that the child would be born silent, the 
attending women hastened to catch some serpent and 
give her its blood to drink. 1 

It is well known that in ancient art this animal was \ 
the symbol of iEsculapius, and to this day, Professor 
Agassiz found that the Maues Indians, who live 
between the upper Tapajos and Madeira Eivers in 
Brazil, whenever they assign a form to any " reme- 
dio," give it that of a serpent. 2 

Probably this notion that it was annually rejuven- 
ated led to its adoption as a symbol of Time among 
the Aztecs; or, perchance, as they reckoned by suns, 
and the figure of the sun, a circle, corresponds to 
nothing animate but a serpent with its tail in its 
mouth, eating itself, as it were, this may have been 
its origin. Either of them is more likely than that 
the symbol arose from the recondite reflection that 

1 Alexander Henry, Travels, p. 117. 

2 Bost. Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. 76, p. 21. 



112 SYMBOLS OF TEE BIRD AND TEE SERPENT. 

time is " never ending, still beginning, still creating, 
still destroying," as has been suggested. 

Only, however, within the last few years has the 
significance of the serpent symbol in its length and 
breadth been satisfactorily explained, and its frequent 
recurrence accounted for. By a searching analysis of 
Greek and German mythology, Dr. Schwarz, of Ber- 
lin, has shown that the meaning which is paramount 
to all others in this emblem is the lightning ; a mean- 
ing drawn from the close analogy which the serpent in 
its motion, its quick spring, and mortal bite, has to 
the zigzag course, the rapid flash, and sudden stroke 
of the electric discharge. He even goes so far as to 
imagine that by this resemblance the serpent first 
acquired the veneration of men. But this is an ex- 
travagance not supported by more thorough research. 
He has further shown with great aptness of illustra- 
tion how, by its dread effects, the lightning, the 
heavenly serpent, became the god of terror and the 
opponent of such heroes as Beowulf, St. George, 
Thor, Perseus, and others, mythical representations 
of the fearful war of the elements in the thunder 
storm ; how from its connection with the advancing 
summer and fertilizing showers it bore the opposite 
character of the deity of fruitfulness, riches, and 
plenty ; how, as occasionally kindling the woods 
where it strikes, it was associated with the myths of 
the descent of fire from heaven, and as in popular 
imagination where it falls it scatters the thunderbolts 
in all directions, the flint-stones which flash when 
struck were supposed to be these fragments, and gave 
rise to the stone worship so frequent in the old world ; 
and how, finally, the prevalent myth of a king of 



THE LIGHTNING SERPEXT. 



113 



serpents crowned with a glittering stone or wearing a 
horn is but another type of the lightning. 1 "Without 
accepting unreservedly all these conclusions, I shall 
show how correct they are in the main when applied 
to the myths of the New World, and thereby illus- 
trate how the red race is of one blood and one faith 
with our own remote ancestors in heathen Europe 
and Central Asia. 

It asks no elaborate effort of the imagination . to 
liken the lightning to a serpent. It does not require 
any remarkable acuteness to guess the conundrum of 
Schiller: — 

" Unter alien Schlangen ist eine 
Auf Erden nicht gezeugt, 
Mit der an Schnelle keine, 

An Wuth sicli keine vergleicht. " 

When Father Buteux was a missionary among the 
Algonkins, in 1637, he asked them their opinion of 
the nature of lightning. " It is an immense serpent/' 
they replied, "which the Manito is vomiting forth; 
you can see the twists and folds that he leaves on the 
trees which he strikes ; and underneath such trees we 
have often found huge snakes." " Here is a novel 
philosophy for you I" exclaims the Father. 2 So the 
Shawnees called the thunder " the hissing of the great 
snake ;" 3 and Tlaloc, the Toltec thunder god, held in 

1 Schwarz, Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargelegt an Griecli- 
ischer und DeutscTier Sage : Berlin, 1860, passim. 

2 Bel. de la Nonv. France : An 1637, p. 53. 

3 Sagen der Nord-Amer. India?ier, p. 21. This is a German 
translation of part of Jones's Legends of the N. Am. Inds. : 
London, 1820. Their value as mythological material is very 
small. 

8 



114 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



his hand a serpent of gold to represent the lightning. 1 
For this reason the Caribs spoke of the god of the 
thunder storm as a great serpent dwelling in the fruit 
forests, 2 and in the Quiche legends other names for 
Hurakan, the hurricane or thunder-storm, are the 
Strong Serpent, He who hurls below, referring to the 
lightning. 3 

Among the Hurons, in 1648, the Jesuits found a 
legend current that there existed somewhere a mon- 
ster serpent called Onniont, who wore on his head a 
horn that pierced rocks, trees, hills, in short every- 
thing he encountered. Whoever could get a piece of 
this horn was a fortunate man, for it was a sovereign 
charm and bringer of good luck. The Hurons con- 
fessed that none of them had had the good hap to 
find the monster and break his horn, nor indeed had 
they any idea of his whereabouts ; but their neigh- 
bors, the Algonkins, furnished them at times small 
fragments for a large consideration. 4 Clearly the 
myth had been taught them for venal purposes by 
their trafficking visitors. Now among the Algon- 
kins, the Shawnee tribe did more than all others 
combined to introduce and carry about religious 
legends and ceremonies. From the earliest times 
they seem to have had peculiar aptitude for the 
ecstasies, deceits, and fancies that made up the 
spiritual life of their associates. Their constantly 
roving life brought them in contact with the myths 
of many nations. And it is extremely probable that 

1 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 37. 

2 Muller, Amer. TIrrelig., 221, after De la Borde. 

3 Le Lime Sacre des Quiches, p. 3. 

4 Bel. de la Nouv. France, 1648, p. 75. 



THE SERPENT KING. 



115 



they first brought the tale of the horned serpent from 
the Creeks and Cherokees. It figured extensively 
in the legends of both these tribes. 

The latter related that once upon a time among 
the glens of their mountains dwelt the prince of 
rattlesnakes. Obedient subjects guarded his palace, 
and on his head glittered in place of a crown a gem 
of marvellous magic virtues. Many warriors and 
magicians tried to get possession of this precious talis- 
man, but were destroyed by the poisoned fangs of its 
defenders. Finally, one more inventive than the rest 
hit upon the bright idea of encasing himself in leather, 
and by this device marched unharmed through the 
hissing aud snapping court, tore off the shining jewel, 
and bore it in triumph to his nation. They preserved 
it with religious care, brought it forth on state occa- 
sions with solemn ceremony, and about the middle of 
the last century, when Captain Timberlake penetrated 
to their towns, told him its origin. 1 

The charm which the Creeks presented their young 
men when they set out on the war path was of very 
similar character. It was composed of the bones of 
the panther and the horn of the fabulous horned 
snake. According to a legend taken down by an un- 
impeachable authority toward the close of the last 
century, the great snake dwelt in the waters ; the old 
people went to the brink and sang the sacred songs. 
The monster rose to the surface. The sages recom- 
menced the mystic chants. He rose a little out o 

1 Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake, p. 48 : London, 1765. 
This little book gives an account of the Cherokees at an earlier 
date than is elsewhere found. 



116 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT 



the water. Again they repeated the songs. This 
time he showed his horns and they cut one off. Still 
a fourth time did they sing, and as he rose to listen 
cut off the remaining horn. A fragment of these in 
the " war physic" protected from inimical arrows and 
gave success in the conflict. 1 

In these myths, which attribute good fortune to the 
horn of the snake, that horn which pierces trees and 
rocks, which rises from the waters, which glitters as a 
gem, which descends from the ravines of the mountains, 
we shall not overstep the bounds of prudent reason- 
ing if we see the thunderbolt, sign of the fructify- 
ing rain, symbol of the strength of the lightning, horn 
of the heavenly serpent. They are strictly meteoro- 
logical in their meaning. And when in later Algon- 
kin tradition the hero Michabo appears in conflict with 
the shining prince of serpents who lives in the lake 
and floods the earth with its waters, and destroys the 
reptile with a dart, and further when the conqueror 
clothes himself with the skin of his foe and drives 
the rest of the serpents to the south where in that 
latitude the lightnings are. last seen in the autumn; 2 
or when in the traditional history of the Iroquois we 
hear of another great horned serpent rising out of the 
lake and preying upon the people until a similar hero- 
god destroys it with a thunderbolt, 3 we cannot be 
wrong in rejecting any historical or ethical interpre- 
tation, and in construing them as allegories which at 

1 Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, p. 80. 

2 Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. p. 179 sq. ; compare ii. p. 
117. 

3 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 159; Cusic, Trad. Hist, of 
the Six Nations, pt. ii. 



THE WAR PHYSIC. 117 

I 

first represented the atmospheric changes which ac- 
company the advancing seasons and the ripening har- 
vests. They are narratives conveying under agreea- 
ble personifications the tidings of that unending com- 
bat which the Dakotas said was being waged with 
varying fortunes by Unktahe against Wauhkeon, 
the God of Waters against the Thunder Bird. 1 They 
are the same stories which in the old world have been 
elaborated into the struggles of Ormuzd and Ahri- 
man, of Thor and Midgard, of St. George and the 
Dragon, and a thousand others. 

Yet it were but a narrow theory of natural religion 
that allowed no other meaning to these myths. 
Many another elemental warfare is being waged 
around us, and applications as various as nature her- 
self lie in these primitive creations of the human 
fancy. Let it only be remembered that there was 
never any moral, never any historical purport in them 
in the infancy of religious life. 

In snake charming as a proof of proficiency in 
magic, and in the symbol of the lightning, which 
brings both fire and water, which in its might con- 
trols victory in war, and in its frequency, plenteous 
crops at home, lies the secret of the serpent symbol. 
As the " war physic" among the tribes of the United 
States was a fragment of a serpent, and as thus signi- 
fying his incomparable skill in war, the Iroquois 

1 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, pp. 161, 212. In this 
explanation I depart from Prof. Schwarz, who has collected 
various legends almost identical with these of the Indians (with 
which he was not acquainted), and interpreted the precious 
crown or horn to be the summer sun, brought forth by the early 
vernal lightning. Ursprung cler Mytlwlogie, p. 27, note. 



118 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



represent their mythical king Atatarho clothed in 
nothing but black snakes, so that when he wished to 
don a new suit he simply drove away one set and 
ordered another to take their places, 1 , so, by a pre- 
cisely Similar mental process, the myth of the Nahuas 
assigns as a mother to their war god Huitzilapochtli, 
Coatlicue, the robe of serpents ; her dwelling place 
Coatepec, the hill of serpents ; and at her lying-in say 
that she brought forth a serpent. Her son's image 
was surrounded by serpents, his sceptre was in the 
shape of one, his great drum was of serpents' skins, 
and his statue rested on four vermiform caryatides. 

As the symbol of the fertilizing summer showers 
the lightning serpent was the god of fruitfulness. 
Born in the atmospheric waters, it was an appropriate 
attribute of the ruler of the winds. But we have 
already seen that the winds were often spoken of as 
great birds. Hence the union of these two emblems 
in such names as Quetzalcoatl, Grucumatz, Kukulkan, 
all titles of the god of the air in the languages of 
Central America, all signifying the "Bird-serpent." 
Here also we see the solution of that monument which 
has so puzzled American antiquaries, the cross at 
Palenque. It is a tablet on the wall of an altar re- 
presenting a cross surmounted by a bird and supported 
by the head of a serpent. The latter is not well de- 
fined in the plate in Mr. Stephens' Travels, but is 
very distinct in the photographs taken by M. Char- 
nay, which that gentleman was kind enough to show 
me. The cross I have previously shown was the 
symbol of the four winds, and the bird and serpent 

1 Cusic, u. s., pt. ii. 



THE GOD OF RICHES. 



119 



are simply the rebus of the air god, their ruler. 1 Quet- 
zalcoatl, called also Yolcuat, the rattlesnake, was no 
less intimately associated with serpents than with 
birds. The entrance to his temple at Mexico re- 
presented the jaws of one of these reptiles, and he 
finally disappeared in the province of Coatzacoalco, 
the hiding place of the serpent, sailing towards the 
east in a bark of serpents' skins. All this refers to 
his power over the lightning serpent. 

He was also .said to be the god of riches and the 
patron consequently of merchants. For with the 
summer lightning 'come the harvest and the ripening 
fruits, come riches and traffic. Moreover "the golden 
color of the liquid fire," as Lucretius expresses it, 
naturally led where this metal was known, to its 
being deemed the product of the lightning. Thus 
originated many of those tales of a dragon who 
watches a treasure in the earth, and of a serpent who 
is the dispenser of riches, such as were found among 
the Greeks and ancient Germans. 2 So it was in Peru 
where the god of riches was worshipped under the 
image of a rattlesnake horned and hairy, with a tail 
of gold. It was said to have descended from the 
heavens in the sight of all the people, and to have 
been seen by the whole army of the Inca. 3 "Whether 

1 This remarkable relic has been the subject of a long and able 
article in the Revue Americaine (torn. ii. p. 69), by the venera- 
ble traveller De Walcleck. Like myself— and I had not seen his 
opinion until after the above was written — he explains the cruci- 
form design as indicating the four cardinal points, but offers the 
explanation merely as a suggestion, and without referring to 
these symbols as they appear in so many other connections. 

2 Schwarz, 'Ursprung der Mytliologie. pp. 62 sqq. 

3 " I have examined many Indians in reference to these details, ' ' 



120 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



it was in reference to it, or as emblems of their 
prowess, that the Incas themselves chose as their 
arms two serpents with their tails interlaced, is un- 
certain ; possibly one for each of these significations. 

Because the rattlesnake, the lightning serpent, is 
thus connected with the food of man, and itself seems 
never to die but annually to renew its youth, the 
Algonkins called it "grandfather" and "king of 
snakes;" they feared to injure it; they believed it 
could grant prosperous breezes, or raise disastrous 
tempests ; crowned with the lunar crescent it was the 
constant symbol of life in their picture writing ; and 
in the meda signs the mythical grandmother of man- 
kind me suh hum me go hwa was indifferently repre- 
sented by an old woman or a serpent. 1 For like 
reasons Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, in the 
myths of the Nahuas was also called Tonantzin, our 
mother.* 

The serpent symbol in America has, however, been 
brought into undue prominence. It had such an 
ominous significance in Christian art, and one which 
chimed so well with the favorite proverb of the early 
missionaries — "the gods of the heathens are devils" 
— that wherever they saw a carving or picture of a 
serpent they at once recognized the sign manual of 
the Prince of Darkness, and inscribed the fact in their 
note-books as proof positive of their cherished theory. 

says the narrator, an Augustin monk writing in 1554, " and they 
have all confirmed them as eye-witnesses" (Lettre sur les Super- 
stitions du Perou, p. 106, ed. Ternaux-Compans. This document 
is very valuable). 

1 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 355; Henry, Travels? p. 176. 

2 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 31. 



MEANING OF THE SERPENT SYMBOL. 121 

After going over the wholt ground, I am convinced 
that none of the tribes of the red race attached to this 
symbol any ethical significance whatever, and that as 
employed to express atmospheric phenomena, and 
the recognition of divinity in natural occurrences, it 
far more frequently typified what was favorable and 
agreeable than the reverse. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE MYTHS OF WATEE, FIEE, AND THE 
THUNDEE-STOEM. 

Water the oldest element. — Its use in purification. — Holy water. — The 
Rite of Baptism.— The Water of Life.— Its symbols.— The Vase.— The 
Moon. — The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, but also of 
sickness, night, and pain. — Often represented by a dog.^s-Fire worship 
under the form of Sun worship. — The perpetual fire. — The new fire. — 
Burning the dead. — A worship of the passions, but no sexual dualism 
in myths, nor any phallic worship in America. — Synthesis of the wor- 
ship of Fire, Water, and the Winds in the Thunder-storm, personified 
as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici, Heno, Tlaloc, Mixcoatl, and other 
deities, many of them triune. 

H^IIE primitive man was a brute in everything but 
the susceptibility to culture ; the chief market 
of his time was to sleep, fight, and feed ; his bodily 
comfort alone had any importance in his eyes ; and 
his gods were nothing,. unless they touched him here. 
Cold, hunger, thirst, these were the hounds that 
were ever on his track ; these were the fell powers 
he saw constantly snatching away his fellows, con- 
stantly aiming their invisible shafts at himself. Fire, 
food, and water were the gods that fought on his side ; 
they were the chief figures in his pantheon, his kind- 
liest, perhaps his earliest, divinities. 

With a nearly unanimous voice mythologies assign 
the priority to water. It was the first of all things, 
the parent of all things. Even the gods themselves 
were born of water, said the Greeks and the Aztecs. 



THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENT. 



123 



Cosmogonies reach no further than the primeval 
ocean that rolled its shoreless waves through a time- 
less night. 

" Omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque litora ponto." 

Earth, sun, stars, lay concealed in its fathomless 
abysses. "All of us," ran the Mexican baptismal 
formula, " are children of Chalchihuitlycue, Goddess 
of Water," and the like was said by the Peruvians 
of Mama Cocha, by the Botocudos of Taru, by the 
natives of Darien of Dobayba, by the Iroquois of 
Ataensic — all of them mothers of mankind, all per- 
sonifications of water. 

How account for such unanimity ? Not by sup- 
posing some ancient intercourse between remote 
tribes, but by the uses of water as the originator and 
supporter, the essential prerequisite of life. Leav- 
ing aside the analogy presented by the motherly 
waters which nourish the unborn child, nor empha- 
sizing how indispensable it is as a beverage, the many 
offices this element performs in nature lead easily to 
the supposition that it must have preceded all else. 
By quenching thirst, it quickens life; as the dew and 
the rain it feeds the plant, and when withheld the 
seed perishes in the ground and forests and flowers 
alike wither away; as the fountain, the river, and the 
lake, it enriches the valley, offers safe retreats, and 
provides store of fishes ; as the ocean, it presents the 
most fitting type of the infinite. It cleanses, it puri- 
fies ; it produces, it preserves. " Bodies, unless dis- 
solved, cannot act," is a maxim of the earliest chemis- 
try. Yery plausibly, therefore, was it assumed as the 
source of all things. 



124 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 

The adoration of streams, springs, and lakes, or 
rather of the spirits their rulers, prevailed every- 
where; sometimes ' avowedly because they provided 
food, as was the case with, the Moxos, who called 
themselves children of the lake or river on which 
their village was, and were afraid to migrate lest their 
parent should be vexed; 1 sometimes because they 
were the means of irrigation, as in Peru, or on more . 
general mythical grounds. A grove by a fountain is 
in all nature worship the ready-made shrine of the 
sylphs who live in its limpid waves and chatter mys- 
teriously in its shallows. On such a spot in our Gulf 
States one rarely fails to find the sacrificial mound of 
the ancient inhabitants, and on such the natives of 
Central America were wont to erect their altars 
(Ximenes). Lakes are the natural centres of civiliza- 
tion. Like the lacustrine villages which the Swiss 
erected in ante-historic times, like ancient Venice, the 
city of Mexico was first built on piles in a lake r and 
for the same reason — protection from attack. Security 
once obtained, growth and power followed. Thus we 
can trace the earliest rays of Aztec civilization rising 
from lake Tezcuco, of the Peruvian from Lake Titi- 
caca, of the Muyscas from Lake Guatavita. These 
are the centres of legendary cycles. Their waters 
were hallowed by venerable reminiscences. From 
the depths of Titicaca rose Yiracocha, mythical 
civilizer of Peru. Guatavita was the bourne of many 
a foot-sore pilgrim in the ancient empire of the Zac. 
Once a year the high priest poured the collective 
offerings of the multitude into its waves, and anointed 

1 A. D'Orbigny, IS Homme Americain, i. p. 240. ' 



HOLY WATER. 



125 



with, oils and glittering with gold dust, dived deep in 
its midst, professing to hold communion with the 
goddess who there had her home. 1 

Not only does the life of man but his well-being 
depends on water. As an ablution it invigorates him 
bodily and mentally. No institution was in higher 
honor among the North American Indians than the 
sweat-bath followed by the cold douche. It was 
popular not only as a remedy in every and any dis- 
ease, but as a preliminary to a council or an im- 
portant transaction. Its real value in cold climates 
is proven by the sustained fondness for the Eussian 
bath in the north of Europe. The Indians, however, 
with their usual superstition attributed its good effects 
to some' mysterious healing power in water itself. 
Therefore, when the patient was not able to undergo 
the usual process, or when his medical attendant was 
above the vulgar and routine practice of his profes- 
sion, it was administered on the-infinitesimal system. 
The quack muttered a formula over a gourd filled 
from a neighboring spring and sprinkled it on his 
patient, or washed the diseased part, or sucked out 
the evil spirit and blew it into a bowl of water, and 
then scattered the liquid on the fire or earth. 2 

The use of such " holy water" astonished the 
Romanist missionaries, and they at once detected 
Satan parodying the Scriptures. But their astonish- 
ment rose to horror when they discovered among 
various nations a rite of baptism of appalling simi- 

1 Rivero and Tschudi, Peruvian Antiquities, 162, after J. 
Acosta. 

2 Narrative of Oceola Mkkanoche, Prince of Econchatti, p. 141 ; 
Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 650. 



126 3IYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 

larity to their own, connected with the imposing of a 
name, done avowedly for the purpose of freeing from 
inherent sin, believed to produce a' regeneration of 
the spiritual nature, nay, in more than one instance 
called by an indigenous word signifying "to be born 
again." 1 Such a rite was of immemorial antiquity 
among the Cherokees, Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians. 
Had the missionaries remembered that it was prac- 
tised in Asia with all these meanings long before it 
was chosen as the sign of the new covenant, they 
need have invoked neither Satan nor Saint Thomas 
to explain its presence in America. 

As corporeal is near akin to spiritual pollution, and 
cleanliness to godliness, ablution preparatory to en- 
gaging in religious acts came early to have an emble- 
matic as well as a real significance. The water freed 
the soul from sin as it did the skin from stain. "We 
should come to God with clean hands and a clean 
heart. As Pilate washed his hands before the. multi- 
tude to indicate that he would not accept the moral 
responsibility of their acts, so from a similar motive 
a Natchez chief, who* had been persuaded against his 
sense of duty not to sacrifice himself on the pyre of 
his ruler, took clean water, washed his hands, and 
threw it upon live coals. 2 When an ancient Peru- 
vian had laid bare his guilt by confession, he bathed 
himself in a neighboring river and repeated this for- 
mula : — 

" 0 thou Eiver, receive the sins I have this day 

1 The term in Maya is caput zihil, corresponding exactly to the 
Latin renasci, to be re-born, Landa, Bel. de Yucatan, p. 144. 

2 Dimiont, Mems. Hist, sur la Louisiane, i. p. 233. ' 



THE RITE OF BAPTISM. 



127 



confessed unto the Siin, carry them down to the sea, 
and let them never more appear." 1 

The Navajo who has been deputed to carry a dead 
body to burial, holds himself unclean until he has 
thoroughly washed himself in water prepared*for the 
purpose by certain ceremonies. 2 A bath was an in- 
dispensable step in the mysteries of Mithras, the 
initiation at Eleusis, the meda worship of the Algon- 
kins, the Busk of the Creeks, the ceremonials of reli- 
gion everywhere. Baptism was at first always 
immersion. It was a bath meant to solemnize the 
reception of the child into the guild of mankind, 
drawn from the prior custom of ablution at any 
solemn occasion. In both the object is greater purity, 
bodily and spiritual. As certainly as there is a law 
of conscience, as certainly as our actions fall short of 
our volitions, so certainly is man painfully aware of 
various imperfections and shortcomings. What he 
feels he attributes to the infant. Avowedly to free 
themselves from this sense of guilt the Delawares 
used an emetic (Loskiel), the Cherokees a potion 
cooked up by an order of female warriors (Timber- 
lake), the Takahlies of Washington Territory, the 
Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians, auricular confession. 
Formulize these feelings and we have the dogmas of 
" original sin," and of " spiritual regeneration." The 
order of baptism among the Aztecs commenced, " O 
child, receive the water of the Lord of the world, 
which is our life; it is to wash and to purify; may 

1 Acosta, Hist, of the New World, lib. v. cap. 25. 
, 2 Senate Report on Condition of Indian Tribes, p. 358 : "Wash- 
ington, 1867. 



128 MYTHS OF WATER, FIEF, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



these drops remove the sin which was given to thee 
before the creation of the world, since all of us are 
under its power;" and concluded, "Now he liveth 
anew and is born anew, now is he purified and 
cleansed, now our mother the Water again bringeth 
him iuto the world." 1 

A name was then assigned to the child, usually 
that of some ancestor, who it was supposed would 
thus be induced to exercise a kindly supervision over 
the little ode's future. In after life should the person 
desire admittance to a superior class of the popula- 
tion and had the wealth to purchase it — for here as 
in more enlightened lands nobility was a matter of 
money — he underwent a second baptism and received 
another name, but still ostensibly from the goddess 
of water. 2 

In Peru the child was immersed in the fluid, the 
priest exorcised the evil and bade it enter the water, 
which was then buried in the ground. 3 In either 
country sprinkling could take the place of immersion. 
The Cherokees believe that unless- the rite is punctu- 
ally performed when the child is three days old, it 
will inevitably die. 4 

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. vi. cap. 37. 

2 Ternaux-Compans, Pieces rel. a la Conq. du Mexique, p. 233. 

3 Velasco, Hist, de la Royaume de Quito, p. 106, and others. 

4 Whipple, Rep. on the Indian Tribes, p. 35. I am not sure 
that this practice was of native growth to the Cherokees. This 
people have many customs and traditions strangely similar to 
those of Christians and Jews. Their cosmogony is a paraphrase 
of that of Genesis (Squier, Serp. Symbol, from Payne's MSS.); 
the number seven is as sacred with them as it was with the 
Chaldeans (Whipple, u. s.) ; and they have improved and in- 
creased by contact with the whites. Significant in this connec- 



THE WATER OF LIFE. 129 

As thus curative and preservative, it was imagined 
that there was water of which whoever should drink 
would not die, but live forever. I have already 
alluded to the Fountain of Youth, supposed long 
before Columbus saw the surf of San Salvador to exist 
in the Bahama Islands or Florida. It seems to have 
lingered long on that peninsula. Not many years 
ago, Coacooche, a Seminole chieftain, related a vision 
which had nerved him to a desperate escape from the 
Castle of St. Augustine. "In my dream," said he, 
"I visited the happy hunting grounds and saw my 
twin sister, long since gone. She offered me a cup 
of pure water, which she said came from the spring 
of the Great Spirit, and if I should drink of it, I 
should return and live with her forever." 1 Some 
such mystical respect for the element, rather than as 
a mere outfit for his spirit home, probably induced 
the earlier tribes of the same territory to place the 
conch-shell which the deceased had used for a cup con- 
spicuously on bis grave, 2 and the Mexicans and Peru- 

tion is the remark of Bartram, who visited them in 1773, that 
some of their females were "nearly as fair and blooming as Euro- 
pean women," and generally that their complexion was lighter 
than their neighbors (Travels, p. 485). Two explanations of 
these facts may be suggested. They may be descendants in part 
of the ancient white race near Cape Hatteras, to whom I have 
referred in a previous note. More probably they derived their 
peculiarities from the Spaniards of Florida. Mr. Shea is of opinion 
that missions were established among them as early as 1566 and 
1643 (Hist, of Catholic Missions in the U. 8., pp. 58, 73). Cer- 
tainly in the latter half of the seventeenth century the Spaniards 
were prosecuting mining operations in their territory (See Am. 
Hist. Mag., x. p. 137). 

1 Sprague, Hist, of the Florida War, p. 328. 

2 Basanier, Histoire Notable de la Floride, p. 10. 

9 



130 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



vians to inter a vase filled with water with the corpse, 
or to sprinkle it with the liquid, baptizing it, as it 
were, into its new associations. 1 It was an emblem 
of the hope that should cheer the dwellings of the 
dead, a symbol of the resurrection which is in store for 
those who have gone down to the grave. 

The vase or the gourd as a symbol of water, the 
source and preserver of life, is a conspicuous figure 
in the myths of ancient America. As Akbal or Hue- 
comitl, the great or original vase, in Aztec and Maya 
legends it plays important parts in the drama of crea- 
tion; as Tici (Ticcu) in Peru it is the symbol of the 
rains, and as a gourd it is often mentioned by the 
Caribs and Tupis as the parent of the atmospheric 
waters. 

As the Moon is associated with the dampness and 
dews of night, an ancient and wide-spread myth 
identified her with the Goddess of Water. More- 
over, in spite of the expostulations of the learned, 
the common people the world over persist' in attri- 
buting to her a marked influence on the rains. 
Whether false or' true, this familiar opinion is of 
great antiquity, and was decidedly approved by the 
Indians, who were all, in the words of an old author, 
" great observers of the weather by the moon." 2 
They looked upon her not only as forewarning them 
by her appearance of the approach of rains and fogs, 
but as being their actual cause. 

Isis, her Egyptian title, literally means moisture ; 

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. iii. app. cap. i. ; 
Meyen, Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru, p. 29. 

2 Gabriel Thomas, Hist, of West New Jersey, p. 6 : London, 
1698. 



THE MO OX AS GODDESS OF WATER. 



131 



Ataensic, whom the Hurons said was the moon, is 
derived from the word for water ; and Citatli and Atl, 
moon and water, are constantly confounded in Aztec 
theology. Their attributes were strikingly alike. 
They were both the mythical mothers of the race, 
and both protect women in child-birth, the babe in 
the cradle, the husbandman in the field, and the 
youth and maiden in their tender affections. As the 
transfer of legends was nearly always from the water 
to its lunar goddess, , by bringing them in at this 
point their true meaning will not fail to be apparent. 

We must ever bear in mind that the course of 
mythology is from many gods toward one, that it is 
a synthesis not an analysis, and that in this process 
the tendency is to blend in one the traits and stories 
of originally separate divinities. As has justly been 
observed by the Mexican antiquarian Grama : " It was 
a common trait among the Indians to worship many 
gods under the figure of one, principally those whose 
activities lay in the same direction, or those in some 
way related among, themselves." 1 

The time of full moon was chosen both in Mexico 
and Peru to celebrate the festival of the deities of 
water, the patrons of agriculture, 2 and very generally 
the ceremonies connected with the crops were regu- 
lated by her phases. The Nicaraguans said that the 
god of rains, Quiateot, rose in the east, 3 thus hinting 
how this connection originated. At a lunar eclipse 
the Orinoko Indians seized their hoes and labored 

1 Gama, Pes. de las dos Piedras, etc., i. p. 36. 

2 Garcia, Or. de los Indios, p. 109. 

3 Oviedo, Bel. de la Prov. de Nicaragua, p. 41. The name is 
a corruption of the. Aztec Quiauhteoil, Rain-God. 



132 3IYTIIS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



with exemplary vigor on their growing corn, saying 
the moon was veiling herself in anger at their habi- 
tual laziness j 1 and a description of the New Nether- 
lands, written about 1650, remarks that the savages 
of that land u ascribe great influence to the moon 
over crops." 2 This venerable superstition, common 
to all races, still lingers among our own farmers, 
many of whom continue to observe " the signs of the 
moon" in sowing grain, setting out trees, cutting 
timber, and other rural avocations. 

As representing water, the universal mother, the 
moon was the protectress of women in child-birth, 
the goddess of love and babes, the patroness of mar- 
riage. To her the mother called in travail, whether 
by the name of " Diana, diva triformis" in pagan 
Eome, by that of Mama Quilla in Peru, or of Meztli 
in Anahuac. Under the title of Yohualticitl, the 
Lady of Night, she was also in this latter country 
the guardian of babes, and as Teczistecatl, the cause 
of generation. 3 

Yery different is another aspect of the moon god- 
dess, and well might the Mexicans paint her with 
two colors. The beneficent dispenser of harvests 
and offspring, she nevertheless has a portentous and 
terrific phase. She is also the goddess of the night, 
the dampness, and the cold ; she engenders the mias- 
matic poisons that rack our bones ; she conceals in 
her mantle the foe who takes us unawares ; she rules 
those vague shapes which fright us in the dim light ; 

1 Gumilla, Hist, del Orinoco, ii. cap. 23. 

2 Doc. Hist, of New York, iv. p. 130. 

3 Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras, ii. p. 41 ; Gallatin, Trans. 
Am. Ethnol. Soc, i. p. 343. 



THE 310 ON AS GODDESS OF NIGHT. 



133 



the causeless sounds of night or its more oppressive 
silence are familiar to her ; she it is who sends 
dreams wherein gods and devils have their sport 
with man, and slumber, the twin brother of the 
grave. In the occult philosophy of the middle ages 
she was " Chief over the Night, Darkness, Eest, 
Death, and the Waters in the language of the 
Algonkins, her name is identical with the words for 
night, death, cold, sleep, and water. 2 

She is the evil minded woman who thus brings 
diseases upon men, who at the outset introduced pain 
and death in the world — our common mother, yet 
the cruel cause of our present woes. Sometimes it 
is the moon, sometimes water, of whom this is said : 
u We are all of us under the power of evil and sin, 
because we are children of the Water," says the 
Mexican baptismal formula. That Unktahe, spirit of 
water, is the master of dreams and witchcraft, is the 
belief of the Dakotas. 3 A female spirit, wife, of the 
great manito whose heart is the sun, the ancient 
Algonkins believed brought death and disease to the 

1 Adrian Van Helmont, Workes, p. 142, fol. : London, 1662. 

2 The moon is nipa or nipaz ; nipa, I sleep ; nipawi, night ; 
nip, I die ; nepua, dead ; nipanoue, cold. This odd relationship 
was first pointed out by Volney (Duponceau, Langues de V Ame- 
rique du Nord, p. 317). But the kinship of these words to that 
for water, nip, nipi, nepi, has not before been noticed. This 
proves the association of ideas on which I lay so much stress in 
mythology. A somewhat similar relationship exists in the Aztec 
and cognate languages, miqui, to die, micqui, dead, mictlan, the 
realm of death, te-miqui, to dream, cec-miqui, to freeze. Would 
it be going too far to connect these with metzli, moon ? (See 
Buschmann, Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im Nordlichen 
Mexico, p. 80.) 

3 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, vol. iii. p. 485. 



134 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



race; " it is she who kills men, otherwise they would 
never die ; she eats their flesh and knaws their vitals, 
till they fall away and miserably perish." 1 Who is 
this woman? In the legend of the Muyscas it is 
Chia, the moon, who was also goddess of water and 
flooded the earth out of spite. 2 Her reputation was 
notoriously bad. The Brazilian mother carefully 
shielded her infant from the lunar rays, believing 
that they would produce sickness ; 3 the hunting tribes 
of our own country will not sleep in its light, nor 
leave their game exposed to its action. We our- 
selves have not outgrown such words as lunatic, 
moon-struck, and the like. Where did we get these 
ideas? The philosophical historian of medicine, 
Kurt Sprengel, traces them to the primitive and 
popular medical theories of ancient Egypt, in accord- 
ance with which all maladies were the effects of the 
anger of the goddess Isis, the Moisture, the Moon. 4 

We have here the key to many myths. Take that 
of Centeotl, the Aztec goddess of Maize. She was 
said at times to appear as a woman of surpassing 
beauty, and allure some unfortunate to her embraces, 
destined to pay with his life for his brief moments of 
pleasure. Even to see her in this shape was a fatal 
omen. She was also said to belong to a class of 
gods whose home was in the west, and who produced 
sickness and pains. 5 Here we see the evil aspect of 

1 Bel. de la Nouv. France, 1634$ p. 16. 

2 Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 21. 

3 Spix and Martius, Travels in Brazil, ii. p. 247. 
i Hist, de la Medecine, i. p. 34. 

5 Gama, Des. de las dos Biedras, etc., ii. pp. 100-102. Compare 
Sahagun, Hist, de la JVueva Espana, lib. i. cap. vi. 



THE MO OX AS GODDESS OF SIC EXE SS. 



135 



the moon reflected on another goddess, who was at 

first solely the patroness of agriculture. 

As the goddess of sickness, it was supposed that 

persons afflicted with certain diseases had been set 

apart by the moon for her peculiar service. These 

diseases were those of a humoral type, especially such 

as are characterized by issues and ulcers. As in 

Hebrew the word accursed is derived from a root 

meaning consecrated to God, so in the Aztec, Quiche, 

and other tongues, the word for leprous, eczematous, or 

syphilitic, means also divine. This bizarre change of 

meaning is illustrated in a very ancient myth of their 

family. It is said that in the absence of the sun all 

mankind lingered in darkness. Nothing but a 

human sacrifice could hasten his arrival. Then 

* 

Metzli, the moon, led forth one Nanahuatl, the 
leprous, and building a pyre, the victim threw him- 
self in its midst. Straightway Metzli followed his 
example, and as she disappeared in the bright flames 
the sun rose over the horizon. 1 Is not this a reference 
to the kindling rays of the aurora, in which the dark 
and baleful night is sacrificed, and in whose light the 
moon presently fades away, and the sun comes forth ? 

Another reaction in the mythological laboratory is 
here disclosed. As the good qualities of water were 

1 Codex Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, i. p. 183. 
Gama and others translate ISTanahuatl by el buboso, Brasseur by 
le syphilitique, and the latter founds certain medical speculations 
on the word. It is entirely unnecessary to say to a surgeon that 
it could not possibly have had the latter meaning, inasmuch as 
the diagnosis between secondary or tertiary syphilis and other 
similar diseases was unknown. That it is so employed now is 
nothing to the purpose. The same or a similar myth was found 
in Central America and on the Island of Haiti. 



186 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



attributed to the goddess of night, sleep, and death, 
so her malevolent traits were in turn reflected back 
on this element. Other thoughts aided the transfer. 
In primitive geography the Ocean Stream coils its 
infinite folds around the speck of land we inhabit, 
biding its time to swallow it wholly. Unwillingly 
did it yield the earth from its bosom, daily does it 
steal it away piece by piece. Every evening it hides 
the light in its depths, and Night and the Waters 
resume their ancient sway. The word for ocean 
{mare) in the Latin tongue means by derivation a 
desert, and the Greeks spoke of it as "the barren 
brine." Water is a treacherous element. Man treads 
boldly on the solid earth, but the rivers and lakes 
constantly strive to swallow those who venture within 
their reach. As streams run in tortuous channels, 
and as rains accompany the lightning serpent, this 
animal was occasionally the symbol of the waters in 
their dangerous manifestations. The Huron magi- 
cians fabled that in the lakes and rivers dwelt one of 
vast size called Angont, who sent sickness, death, and 
other mishaps, and "the least mite of whose flesh was 
a deadly poison. They added — and this was the 
point of the tale — that they always kept on hand por- 
tions of the monster for the benefit of any who 
opposed their designs. 1 The legends of the Algon- 
kins mention a rivalry between Michabo, creator of 
the earth, and the Spirit of the Waters, who was um 
friendly to the project. 2 In later tales this antago- 

1 Bel. de la Notiv. France, 1648, p. 75. 

2 Charlevoix is in error when he identifies Michabo with the 
Spirit of the Waters, and ma} r be corrected from his own state- 



BOGS AS SYMBOLS OF THE BIO OX. 



137 



nism becomes more and more pronounced, and borrows 
an ethical significance which it did not have at first. 
Taking, however, American religions as a whole, 
water is far more frequently represented as producing 
beneficent effects than the reverse. 

Dogs were supposed to stand in some peculiar rela- 
tion to the moon, probably because they howl at it 
and run at night, uncanny practices which have cost 
them dear in reputation. The custom prevailed 
among tribes so widely asunder as Peruvians, Tupis, 
Creeks, Iroquois, Algonkins, and Greenland Eskimos 
to thrash the curs most soundly during an eclipse. 1 
The Creeks explained this by saying that the big dog 
was swallowing the sun, and that by whipping the 
little ones they could make him desist. What the 
big dog was they were not prepared to say. We 
know. It' was the night goddess, represented by the 
dog, who was thus shrouding the world at midday. 
The ancient Eomans sacrificed dogs to Hecate and 
Diana, in Eg}^pt they were sacred to Isis, and thus as 
traditionally connected with night and its terrors, the 
Prince of Darkness, in the superstition of the middle 
ages, preferably appeared under the form of a cur, as 
that famous poodle which accompanied Cornelius 
Agrippa, or that which grew to such enormous size 
behind the stove of Dr. Faustus. In a better sense, 
they represented the more agreeable characteristics 
of the lunar goddess. Xochiquetzal, most fecund of 

ments elsewhere. Compare his Journal Historique, pp. 281 and 
844 : eel. Paris, 1740. 

1 Bradford, American Antiquities, p. 333 ; Martius, Von dem 
RecMszustande unter den TJreiniDohnern Brasiliens, p. 32 ; 
Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, i. p. 271. 



138 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



Aztec divinities, patroness of love, of sexual pleasure, 
and of childbirth, was likewise called Itzcuinan, 
which, literally translated, is hitch-mother. This 
strange and to us so repugnant title for a goddess was 
not without parallel elsewhere. When in his wars 
the Inca Pachacutec carried his arms into the pro- 
vince of Huanca, he found its inhabitants had installed 
in their temples the figure of a dog as their highest 
deity. They were accustomed also to select one as 
his living representative, to pray to it and offer it 
sacrifice, and when well fattened, to serve it up with 
solemn ceremonies at a great feast, eating their god 
substantialiter. The priests in this province sum- 
moned their attendants to the temples by blowing 
through an instrument fashioned from a dog's skull. 1 
This canine canonization explains why in some parts 
of Peru a priest was called by way of honor- allco, 
clog ! 2 And why in many tombs both there and in 
Mexico their skeletons are found carefully interred 
with the human remains. Wherever the Aztec race 
extended they seem to have carried the adoration*of 
a wild species, the- coyote, the canis lairans of natu- 
ralists. The Shoshonees of New Mexico call it their 
progenitor, 3 and with the Nahuas it was in such high 
honor that it had a temple of its own, a congregation 
of priests devoted to its service, statues carved in 
stone, an elaborate tomb at death, and is said to be 
meant by the god Chantico, whose audacity caused 
the destruction of the world. The story was that he 
made a sacrifice to the gods without observing a pre- 

1 La Vega, Hist, des Incas, liv. vi. cap. 9. 

2 Lett, sur les Superstitions du Perou, p. 111. 

3 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 224. 



DOGS AS SYMBOLS OF THE NOON. 



139 



paratory fast, for which he was punished by being 
changed into a dog. He then invoked the god ot 
death to deliver him, which attempt to evade a just 
punishment so enraged the divinities that they im- 
mersed the world in water. 1 

During a storm on our northern lakes the Indians 
think no offering so likely to appease the angry water 
god who is raising the tempest as a dog. Therefore 
they hasten to tie the feet of one and toss him over- 
board. 2 One meets constantly in their tales and 
superstitions the mysterious powers of the animals, 
and the .distinguished actions he has at times per- 
formed bear usually a close parallelism to those attri- 
buted to water and the moon. 

1 Chantico, according to Gama, means " Wolf's Head," though 
I cannot verify this from the vocabularies within my reach. He 
is sometimes called Cohuaxolotl Chantico, the snake-servant 
Chantico, considered by Gama as one, by Torquemada as two 
deities (see Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., i. p. 12 ; ii. p. 66). 
The English word cantico in the phrase, for instance, "to cut a 
cantico," though an Indian word, is not from this, but from the 
Algonkin Delaware gentkehn, to dance a sacred dance. The 
Dutch describe it as "a religious custom observed among them 
before death" \l)oc. Hist, of New York, iv. p. 63). William 
Penn says of the Lenape, "their worship consists of two parts, 
sacrifice and cantico," the latter "performed by round dances, 
sometimes words, sometimes songs, then shouts ; their postures 
very antic and differing." (Letter to the Free Society of Traders, 
1683, sec. 21.) 

2 Charlevoix, Hist. Gen. de la Nouv. France, i. p. 394 : Paris, 
1740. On the different species of dogs indigenous to America, 
see a note of Alex, von Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur., i. p. 
134. It may be noticed that Chichimec, properly Chichimecatl, 
the name of the Aztec tribe who succeeded the ancient Toltecs 
in Mexico, means literally "people of the. dog," and was proba- 
bly derived from some mythological fable connected with that 
animal. 



140 31YTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 

Hunger and thirst were thus alleviated by water. 
Cold remained, and against this fire' was the shield. 
It gives man light in darkness and warmth in winter ; 
it shows him his friends and warns him of his foes ; 
the flames point toward heaven and the smoke makes 
the clouds. Around it social life begins. For his 
home and his hearth the savage has but one word, 
and what of tender emotion his breast can feel, is 
linked to the circle that gathers around his fire. The 
council fire, the camp fire, and the war fire, are so 
many epochs in his history. By its aid many arts 
become possible, and it is a civilizer in more ways 
than one. In the figurative language of the red race, 
it is constantly used as "an emblem of peace, hap- 
piness, and abundance.'" To extingish an enemy's 
fire is to slay him; to light a visitor's fire is to bid 
him welcome. Fire worship was closely related to 

1 Narr. of the Captiv. of John Tanner, p. 362. From the 
word for fire in many American tongues is formed the adjective 
red. Thus, Algonkin, skoda, fire, miskoda, red ; Kolosch, kan, 
fire, Jean, red ; Ugalentz, takak, fire, takak-uete, red ; Tahkali, cun, 
fire, tenil-cun, red ; Quiche, cak, fire, cak, red, etc. From the ad- 
jective red comes often the word for blood, and in symbolism the 
color red may refer to either of these ideas. It was the royal 
color of the Incas, brothers of the sun, and a llama swathed in a 
red garment was the Peruvian sacrifice to fire (Garcia, Or. de los 
Indios, lib. iv. caps. 16, 19). On the other hand the war quipus, 
the war wampum, and the war paint were all of this hue, boding 
their sanguinary significance. The word for fire in the language 
of the Delawares, Nanticokes, and neighboring tribes puzzles 
me. It is taenda or tinda. This is the Swedish word taenda, 
from whose root comes our tinder. Yet it is found in vocabu- 
laries as early as 1650, and is universally current to-day. It has 
no resemblance to the word for fire in pure Algonkin. Was it 
adopted from the Swedes? Was it introduced by wandering 
Vikings in remote centuries ? Or is it only a coincidence ? 



SUX WORSHIP. 



141 



that of the sun, and so much has been said of sun 
■worship among the aborigines of America that it is 
well at once to assign it its true position. 

A generation ago it was a. fashion' very much ap- 
proved to explain all symbols and myths by the 
action of this orb on nature. This short and easy 
method with mythology has, in Carlylian phrase, had 
its bottom pulled from under it in these later times. 
Nowhere has it manifested its inefficiency more pal- 
pably than in America. One writer, while thus ex- 
plaining the religions of the tribes of colder regions 
and higher latitudes, denies sun worship among the 
natives of hot climates; another asserts that only 
among the latter did it exist at all ; while a third lays 
down the maxim that the religion of the red race every- 
where " was but a modification of Sun or Fire worship." 1 
All such sweeping generalizations are untrue, and must 
be so. No one key can open all the arcana of symbo- 
lism. Man devised means as varied as nature herself 
to express the idea of Grod within him. The sun was 
but one of these, and not the first nor the most import- 
ant. Fear, said the wise Epicurean, first made the 
gods. The sun with its regular course, its kindly 
warmth, its beneficent action, no wise inspires that sen- 
timent. It conjures no phantasms to appal the super- 
stitious fancy, and its place in primitive mythology is 
conformably inferior. The myths of the Eskimos and 

1 Compare D'Orbigny, X' Homme Americain,i. p. 242, Muller, 
Amer. Urreligionen, p. 51, and Squier, Serpent Symbol in Ame- 
rica, p. 111. This is a striking instance of the confusion of ideas 
introduced by false systems of study, and also of the considerable 
misapprehension of American mythology which has hitherto 
prevailed. 



142 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



northern Athapascas omit its action altogether. The 
Algonkins by no means imagined it the highest god, 
and at most but one of his emblems. 1 That it often 
appears in their prayers is true, but this arose from 
the fact that in many of their dialects, as well as in 
the language of the Mayas and others, the word for 
heaven or sky was identical with that for sun, and 
the former, as I have shown, was the supposed abode 
of deity, " the wigwam of the Great Spirit." 2 The 
alleged sun worship of the Cherokees rests on testi- 
mony modern, doubtful, and unsupported. 3 In North 
America the Natchez alone were avowed worshippers 
of this luminary. Yet they adored it under the name 
Great Fire (wah sil), clearly pointing to a prior ado- 
ration of that element. The heliolatry organized 
principally for political ends by the Incas of Pern, 
stands alone in the religions of the red race. Those 
shrewd legislators at an early elate officially an- 
nounced that Inti, the sun, their own elder brother, 
was ruler of the cohorts of heaven by like divine 
right that they were of - the four corners of the earth. 
This scheme ignominiously failed, as every attempt 
to fetter the liberty of conscience must and should. 
The later Incas finally indulged publicly in heterodox 
remarks, and compromised the matter by acknow- 

1 La Hontan, Toy. dans VAmer. Sept., p. ii. 127; Bel. Noun. 
France, 1637, p. 54. 

2 Copway, Trad. Hist, of the Ojibway Nation, p. 165. Kesuch 
in Algonkin signifies both sky and sun (Duponceau, Langues de 
VAmer. du Nord, p. 312). So apparently does kin in the Maya. 

3 Payne's manuscripts quoted by Mr. Squier in his Serpent 
Symbol in America were compiled within this century, and from 
the extracts given can be of no great value. 



THE PERPETUAL FIRE. 



143 



ledging a divinity superior even to their brother, the 
sun, as we have seen in a previous chapter. 

The myths of creation never represent the sun as 
anterior to the world, but as manufactured by the 
" old people" (Navajos), as kindled and set going 
by the first of men (Algonkins), or as freed from 
some cave by a kindly deity (Haitians). It is always 
spoken of as a fire ; only in Peru and Mexico had the 
precession of the equinoxes been observed, and with- 
out danger of error we can merge the consideration 
of its worship almost altogether in that of this ele- 
ment. 1 

The institutions of a perpetual fire, of obtaining 
new fire, and of burning the dead, prevailed exten- 
sively in the New World. In the present discussion 
the origin of such practices, rather than the ceremo- 
nies with which they were attended, have an interest. 
The savage knew that fire was necessary to his life. 
Were it lost, he justly foreboded dire calamities and 
the ruin of his race. Therefore at stated times with 
due solemnity he produced it anew by friction or the 
flint, or else was careful to keep one fire constantly 
alive. These not unwise precautions soon fell to 
mere superstitions. If the Aztec priest at the stated 
time failed to obtain a spark from his pieces of wood, 
if the sacred fire by chance became extinguished, the 
end of the world or the destruction of mankind was 
apprehended. " You know it was a saying among our 

1 The words for fire and sun in American languages are usually 
from distinct roots, but besides the example of the Natchez I may 
instance to the contrary the Kolosch of British America, in whose 
tongue fire is kan, sun, kakan (gake, great), and the Tezuque of 
New Mexico, who use tali for both sun and fire. 



144 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 

ancestors," said an Iroquois chief in 1753, "that when 
the fire at Onondaga goes out, we shall no longer be 
a people." 1 So deeply rooted was this notion, that 
the Catholic missionaries in New Mexico were fain 
to wink at it, and perform the sacrifice of the mass 
in the same building where the flames were perpetu- 
ally burning, that were not to be allowed to die until 
Montezuma and the fabled glories of ancient Anahuac 
with its heathenism should return. 2 Thus fire became ♦ 
the type of life. " Know that the life in your body 
and the fire on your hearth are one and the same 
thing, and that both proceed from one source," said 
a Shawnee prophet. 3 Such an expression was wholly 
in the spirit of his race. The greatest feast of the 
Delawares was that to their "grandfather, the fire." 4 
" Their fire burns forever," was the Algonkin figure 
of speech to express the immortality of their gods. 5 
11 The ancient God, the Father and Mother of all 
Gods," says an Aztec prayer, " is the God of the Fire 
which is in the centre of the court with four walls, 
and which is covered with gleaming feathers like 
unto wings ;"" dark sayings of the priests, referring 
to the glittering lightning fire borne from the four 
sides of the earth. 

As the path to a higher life hereafter, the burning 
of the dead was first instituted. It was a privilege 
usually confined to a select few. Among the Algon- 

1 Doc. Hist, of New York, ii. p. 634. 

2 Emory, Milfy Beconnoissance of New Mexico, p. 30. 

3 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 161. 

4 Loskiel, Ges. der Miss, der evang. Briider, p. 55. 

5 Nar. of John Tanner, p. 351. 

6 Saliagun, Hist. Nueva Espaha, lib. vi. cap. 4. 



THE FIRE OF THE PASSIOXS 



145 



kin-Ottawas, only those of the distinguished totem 
of the Great Hare, among the Nicaraguans none but 
the caciques, among the Caribs exclusively the 
priestly caste, were entitled to this peculiar honor. 1 
The first gave as the reason for such an exceptional 
custom, that the members of such an illustrious clan 
as that of Michabo, the Great Hare, should not rot in 
the ground as common folks, but rise to the heavens 
on the flames and smoke. Those of Nicaragua 
seemed to think it the sole path to immortality, hold- 
ing that only such as offered themselves on the pyre 
of their chieftain would escape annihilation at death ; 2 
and the tribes of upper California were persuaded 
that such as were not burned at death were liable to 
be transformed into the lower orders of brutes. 3 
Strangely enough, we thus find a sort of baptism by 
fire deemed essential to a higher life beyond the 
grave. 

Another analogy strengthened the symbolic force 
of fire as life. This is that which exists between the 
sensation of warmth and those passions whose phy- 
siological end is the perpetuation of the species. We 
see how native it is to the mind from such coarse 
expressions as "hot lust," "to burn," "to be in heat," 
" stews," and the like, figures not of the poetic, but 
the vulgar tongue. They occur in all languages, and 
hint how readily the worship of fire glided into that 
of the reproductive principle, into extravagances of 

1 Letts. Edifiantes et Curieuses, iv. p. 104, Oviedo ; Hist, du 
Nicaragua, p. 49; Gomara, Hist, del Orinoco, ii. cap. 2. 

2 Ovieclo, Hist. Gen. de las Indias, p. 16, in Barcia's Hist. 
Prim. 

3 Presdfs Message and Docs, for 1851, pt. iii. p. 506. 

10 



146 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



chastity and lewdness, into the shocking orgies of 
the so-called phallic worship. 

Some have supposed that a sexual dualism per- 
vades all natural religions, and this too has been 
assumed as the solution of all their myths. It has 
been said that the action of heat upon moisture, of 
the sun on the waters, the mysteries of reproduction, 
and the satisfaction of the sexual instincts, are the 
unvarying themes of primitive mythology. So far 
as the red race is concerned, this is a most gratuitous 
assumption. The facts that have been eagerly col- 
lated by Dulaure and others to bolster such a detesta- 
ble theory lend themselves fairly to no such inter- 
pretation. 

There existed, indeed, a worship of the passions. • 
Apparently it was grafted upon or rose out of that of 
fire by the analogy I have pointed out. Thus the 
Mexican god of fire was supposed to govern the 
generative proclivities, 1 and there is good reason to 
believe that the sacred fire watched by unspotted 
virgins among the Mayas had decidedly such a 
signification. Certainly it was so, if we can depend 
upon the authority of a ballad translated from the 
original immediately after the conquest, cited by the 
venerable traveller and artist Count de Waldeck. 
It purports to be from the lover of one of these 
vestals, and referring to her occupation asks with a 
fine allusion to its mystic meaning — 

" 0 vierge, quand pourrai-je te posseder pour ma cornpagne 
cherie ? 

Combien de temps faut-il encore que tes voeux soient ac- 
complis ? 



1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, i. cap. 13. 



THE FIRE OF TEE PASSIOXS. 



147 



Dis-inoi le jour qui doit devancer la belle nuit oil tous deux, 
Aliruenterons le feu qui nous fit naitre et que nous devons 
perpetuer. ' ' 1 

There is a bright as well as a dark side even to 
such a worship. In Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan, the 
women who watched the flames must be undoubted 
virgins ; they were usually of noble blood, and must 
vow eternal chastity, or at least were free to none 
but the ruler of the realm. As long as they were 
consecrated to the fire, so long any carnal ardor was 
degrading to their lofty duties. The sentiment of 
shame, one of the first we find developed, led to the 
belief that to forego fleshly pleasures was a meritorious 
sacrifice in the eyes of the gods. In this persuasion 
certain of the Aztec priests practised complete 
abscission or entire discerption of the virile parts, 
and a mutilation of females was not unknown similar 
to that immemorially a custom in Egypt. 2 Such 
enforced celibacy was, however, neither common nor 
popular. Circumcision, if it can be proven to have 
existed among the red race — and though there are 
plenty of assertions to that effect, they are not satis- 
factory to an anatomist — was probably a symbolic 
renunciation of the lusts of the flesh. The same cannot 

1 Voyage Pittoresque dans le Yucatan, p. 49. 

2 Davila Padilla, Hist, de la Prod, de Santiago de Mexico, lib. 
ii. cap. 88 (Brusselas, 1625) ; Palacios, Bes. de Guatemala, p. 40 ; 
Garcia, Or. de los Indios, p. 124. To such an extent did the 
priests of the Algonkin tribes who lived near Manhattan Island 
carry their austerity, such uncompromising celibates were they, 
that it is said on authority as old as 1624, that they never so 
much as partook of food prepared by a married woman. {Doc. 
Hist. Neic York, iv. p. 28.) 



148 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 

be said of the very common custom with the Aztec 
race of anointing their idols with blood drawn from 
the genitals, the tongue, and the ears. This was 
simply a form of those voluntary scarifications, uni- 
versally employed to mark contrition or grief by 
savage tribes, and nowhere more in vogue than with 
the red race. 

There was an ancient Christian heresy which taught 
that the true way to conquer the passions was to 
satiate them, and therefore preached unbounded licen- 
tiousness. Whether this agreeable doctrine was 
known to the Indians I cannot say, but it is certainly 
the most creditable explanation that can be suggested 
for the miscellaneous congress which very often termi- 
nated their dances and ceremonies. Such orgies were 
of common occurrence among the Algonkins and 
Iroquois at a very early date, and are often mentioned 
in the Jesuit Eelations ; Venegas describes them as 
frequent among the tribes of Lower California ; and 
Ovieclo refers to certain festivals of the Nicaraguans, 
during which the women of all rank extended to 
whosoever wished just such privileges as the matrons 
of ancient Babylon, that mother of harlots and all 
abominations, used to grant even to slaves and stran- 
gers in the temple of Melitta, as one of the duties of 
religion. But in fact there is no ground whatever to 
invest these debauches with any recondite meaning. 
They are simply indications of the thorough and 
utter immorality which prevailed throughout the race. 
And a still more disgusting proof of it is seen in the 
frequent appearance among diverse tribes of men 
"dressed as women and yielding themselves to inde- 



XO PHALLIC WORSHIP. 



149 



scribable vices. 1 There was at first nothing of a 
religions nature in such exhibitions. Lascivious 
priests chose at times to invest them with some such, 
meaning for their own sensual gratification, just as 
in Brazil they still claim the jus primse noctis. 2 The 
pretended phallic worship of the Natchez and of 
Culhuacan, cited by the Abbe Brasseur, rests on no 
good authority, and if true, is like that of the Huas- 
tecas of Panuco, nothing but an unrestrained and 
boundless profligacy which it were an absurdity to 
call a religion. 3 That which Mr. Stephens attempts 
to show existed once in Yucatan, 4 rests entirely by 
his own statement on a fancied resemblance of no 
value whatever, and the arguments of Lantau to the 
same effect are quite insufficient. There is a decided 
indecency in the remains of ancient American art, 
especially in Peru (Meyen), and great lubricity in 
many ceremonies, but the proof is altogether wanting 
to bind these with the recognition of a fecundating 
principle throughout nature, or, indeed, to suppose 
for them any other origin than the promptings of an 
impure fancy. I even doubt whether they often 
referred to fire as the deity of sexual love. 

•By a flight of fancy inspired by a study of oriental 
mythology, the worship of the reciprocal principle 
in America has been connected with that of the sun 
and mooD, as the primitive pair from whose fecund 
union all creatures proceeded. It is sufficient to say 

1 Martius, Von dem BecMzustande unter den Ureinwohnem 
Brasiliens, p. 28, gives many references. 
1 Id. ibid., p. 61. 

3 Le Lvore Sacre des Quiches, Introd., pp. clxi., clxix. 

4 Travels in Yucatan, i. p. 434. 



150 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 

if such a myth exists among the Indians — which is 
questionable — it justifies no such deduction; that the 
moon is often mentioned in their languages merely as 
the "night sun;" and that in such important stocks 
as the Iroquois, Athapascas, Cherokees, and Tupis, 
the sun is said to be a feminine noun; while the 
myths represent them more frequently as brother and 
sister than as man. and wife ; nor did at least the 
northern tribes regard the sun as the cause of fecun- 
dity in nature at all, but solely as giving light and 
warmth. 1 

In contrast to this, so much the more positive was 
their association of the thunder-storm as that which 
brings both warmth and rain with the renewed vernal 
life of vegetation. The impressive phenomena which 
characterize it, the prodigious noise, the awful flash, 
the portentous gloom, the blast, the rain, have left a 
profound impression on the myths of every land. 
Fire from water, warmth and moisture from the de- 
structive breath of the tempest, this was the riddle 
of riddles to the untutored mind. "Out of the eater 
came forth meat, -out of the strong came forth sweet- 
ness." It was the visible synthesis of all the divine 
manifestations, the winds, the waters, and the flames. 

The Dakotas conceived it as a struggle between the 
god of waters and the thunder bird for the command 
of their nation, 2 and as a bird, one of those which 
make a whirring sound with their wings, the turkey, 
the pheasant, or the nighthawk, it was very gene- 
rally depicted by their neighbors, the Athapascas, 

1 Schoolcraft, hid. Tribes, v. pp. 416, 417. 

2 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 161. 



THE THUNDER-STORM. 



151 



Iroquois, and Algonkins. 1 As the herald of the 
summer it was to them a good omen and a friendly 
power. It was the voice of the Great Spirit of the 
four winds speaking from the clouds and admonish- 
ing them that the time of corn planting was at hand. 2 
The flames kindled by the lightning were of a sacred 
nature, proper to be employed in lighting the fires of 
the religious rites, but on no account to be profaned 
by the base uses of daily life. When the flash en- 
tered the ground it scattered in all directions those 
stones, such as the flint, which betray their supernal 
origin by a gleam of fire when struck. These were 
the thunderbolts, and from such an one, significantly 
painted red, the Dakotas averred their race had pro- 
ceeded. 3 For are we not all in a sense indebted for 
our lives to fire ? " There is no end to the fancies 
entertained by the Sioux concerning thunder," ob- 
serves Mrs. Eastman. They typified the paradoxical 
nature of the storm under the character of the giant 
Haokah. To him cold was heat, and heat cold ; 
when sad he laughed, when merry groaned ; the sides 
of his face and his eyes were of different colors and 
expressions ; he wore horns or a forked headdress to 
represent the lightning, and with his hands he hurled 
the meteors. His manifestations were fourfold, and 

1 Bel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 27 ; Schoolcraft, Algic Be- 
searches, ii. p. 116 ; Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420. 

2 De Srnet, Western Missions, p. 185 ; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, 
i. p. 319. 

3 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 72. By another le- 
gend they claimed that their first ancestor obtained his fire from 
the sparks which a friendly panther struck from the rocks as he 
scampered up a stony hill (McCoy, Hist, of Baptist Indian Mis- 
sions, p. 364). 



152 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



one of the four winds was the drum-stick he used to 
produce the thunder. 1 

Omitting many others, enough that the sameness 
of this conception is illustrated by the myth of Tupa, 
highest god and first man of the Tupis of Brazil. 
During his incarnation, he taught them agriculture, 
gave them fire, the cane, and the pisang, and now in 
the form of a huge bird sweeps over the heavens, 
watching his children and watering their crops, ad- 
monishing them of his presence by the mighty sound 
of his voice, the rustling of his wings, and the flash 
of his eye. These are the thunder, the lightning, 
and the roar of the tempest. He is depicted with 
horns ; he was one of four brothers, and only after a 
desperate struggle did he drive his fraternal rivals 
from the field. In his worship, the priests place 
pebbles in a dry gourd, deck it with feathers and 
arrows, and rattling it vigorously, reproduce in 
miniature the tremendous drama of the storm. 2 

As nations rose in civilization these fancies put on 
a more complex form and a more poetic fulness. 
Throughout the realm of the Incas the Peruvians vene- 
rated as creator of all things, maker of heaven and 
earth, and ruler of the firmament, the god Ataguju. 
The legend was that from him proceeded the first of 
mortals, the man Gruamansuri, who descended to the 
earth and there seduced the sister of certain Gruache- 
mines, rayless ones, or Darklings, who then possessed 
it. For this crime they destroyed him, but their sister 
proved pregnant, and died in her labor, giving birth 

1 Mrs. Eastman, ubi sup., p. 158 ; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. 
p. 645. 

2 Waitz, Anthropologic, iii. p. 417 ; Muller, Am. Urrelig., p. 271. 



THE MYTH OF CATEQUIL. 



153 



to two eggs. From these emerged the twin brothers, 
Apocatequ.il and Piguerao. The former was the more 
powerful. By touching the corpse of his mother he 
brought her to life, he drove off and slew the Gua- 
chemiues, and, directed by Atagivju, released the race 
of Indians from the soil by turning it up with a 
spade of gold. For this reason they adored him as 
their maker. He it was, they thought, who produced 
the thunder and the lightning by hurling stones with 
his sling ; and the thunderbolts that fall, said they, 
are his children. Few villages were willing to be 
without one or more of these. They were in appear- 
ance small, round, smooth stones, but had the admi- 
rable properties of securing fertility to the fields, pro- 
tecting from lightning, and, by a transition easy to 
understand, were also adored as gods of the Fire, as 
well material as of the passions, and were capable of 
kindling the dangerous flames of desire in the most 
frigid bosom. Therefore they were in great esteem 
as love charms. 

Apocatequil's statue was erected on the mountains, 
with that of his mother on one hand, and his brother 
on the other. " He was Prince of Evil and the most 
respected god of the Peruvians. From Quito to 
Cuzco not an Indian but would give all he possessed 
to conciliate him. Five priests, two stewards, and a 
crowd of slaves served his image. And his chief 
temple was surrounded by a very considerable village 
whose inhabitants had no other occupation than to 
wait on him." In memory of these brothers, twins in 
Peru were deemed always sacred to the lightning, and 
when a woman or even a llama brought them forth, 
a fast was held and sacrifices offered to the two pris- 



154 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



tine brothers, with a chant commencing: A chuchu 
cachiqui, 0 Thou who causest twins, words mistaken 
by the Spaniards for the name of a deity. 1 

Grarcilasso de la Vega, a descendant of the Incas, 
has preserved an ancient indigenous poem of his 
nation, presenting the storm myth in a different form, 

1 On the myth of Catequil see particularly the Letire sur les 
Superstitions du Perou, p. 95 sqq., and compare Montesinos, 
Ancien Perou, chaps, ii., xx. The letters g and j do not exist 
in Quichua, therefore Ataguju should doubtless read Ata-chuchu, 
which means lord, or ruler of the twins, from ati root of atini, 
I am able, I control, and chuchu, twins. The change of the root 
ati to ata, though uncommon in Quichua, occurs also in ata- 
hualpa, cock, from ati and hualpa, fowl. Apo-Catequil, or as 
given by Arriaga, another old writer on Peruvian idolatry, 
Apocatequilla, I take to be properly apu-ccatec-quilla, which 
literally means chief of the followers of the moon. Acosta men- 
tions that the native name for various constellations was cata- 
chillay or catuchillay, doubtless corruptions of ccatec quilla, 
literally "following the moon. 1 ' Catequil, therefore, the dark 
spirit of the storm rack, was also appropriately enough, and 
perhaps primarily, lord of the night and stars. Piguerao, where 
the g appears again, is probably a compound of piscu, bird, and 
uira, white. Guachemines seems clearly the word huachi, a ray 
of light or an arrow, with the negative suffix ymana, thus mean- 
ing rayless, as in the text, or ymana may mean an excess as well 
as a want of anything beyond what is natural, which would give 
the signification "very bright shining." (Holguin, Arte de la 
Lengua Quichua, p. 106: Cuzco, 1607.) Is this sister of theirs 
the Dawn, who, as in the Kig Yeda, brings forth at the cost of 
her own life the white and dark twins, the Day and the Night, 
the latter of whom drives from the heavens the far-shooting 
arrows of light, in order that he may restore his mother again to 
life ? The answer may for the present be deferred. It is a coin- 
cidence perhaps worth mentioning that the Augustin monk who 
is our principal authority for this legend mentions two other 
twin deities, Yamo and Yama, whose names are almost identical 
with the twins Yama and Yami of the Yeda. 



PER U VI AN MYTHS. 



155 



which, as undoubtedly authentic and not devoid of 
poetic beauty *I translate, preserving as much as pos- 
sible the trochaic tetrasyllabic verse of the original 
Quichua : — 

" Beauteous princess, 
Lo, thy brother 
Breaks thy vessel 
Now in fragments. 
From the blow come 
Thunder, lightning, 
Strokes of lightning. 
And thou, princess, 
Tak'st the water, 
With it rainest, 
And the hail, or 
Snow dispensest. 
Viracocha, 
World constructor, 
World enliv'ner, 
To this office 
Thee appointed, 
Thee created." 1 

In this pretty waif that has floated down to us 
from the wreck of a literature now forever lost, there 
is more than one point to attract the notice of the 
antiquary. He may find in it a hint to decipher those 
names of divinities so common in Peruvian legends, 
Contici and Illatici. Both mean " the Thunder Vase," 
and both doubtless refer to the conception here dis- 
played of the phenomena of the thunder-storm. 2 

1 Hist, des Incas, liv. ii. cap. 28, and corrected in Markham's 
Quichua Grammar . 

2 The latter is a compound of tici or ticcu, a vase, and ylla, the 
root of yllani, to shine, yttapantac, it thunders and lightens. 
The former is from tici and cun or con, whence by reduplication 
cun-un-un-an, it thunders. From cun and tura, brother, is pro- 



156 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 

Again, twice in this poem is the triple nature of 
the storm adverted to. This is observable in many 
of the religions of America. It constitutes a sort of 
Trinity, not in any point resembling that of Chris- 
tianity, nor yet the Trimurti of India, but the only 
one in the New World the least degree authenticated, 
and which, as half seen by ignorant monks, has caused 
its due amount of sterile astonishment. Thus, in the 
Quiche legends we read: "The first of Hurakan is 
the lightning, the second the track of the lightning, 
and the third the stroke of the lightning ; and these 
three are Hurakan, the Heart of the Sky." 1 It reap- 
pears with characteristic uniformity of outline in 
Iroquois mythology. Heno, the thunder, gathers the 
clouds and pours out the warm rains. Therefore he 
was the patron of husbandry. He was invoked at 
seed time and harvest ; and as purveyor of nourish- 
ment he was addressed as grandfather, and his wor- 
shippers styled themselves his grandchildren. He 
rode through the heavens on the clouds, and the 
thunderbolts which split the forest trees were the 
stones he hurled at his enemies. Three assistants were 
assigned him, whose names have unfortunately not 
been recorded, and whose offices were apparently 
similar to those of the three companions of Hurakan. 2 

So also the Aztecs supposed that Tlaloc, god of 

bably derived cuntur, the condor, the flying thunder-cloud being 
looked upon as a great bird also. Dr. Waitz has pointed out 
that the Araucanians call by the title con, the messenger who 
summons their chieftains to a general council. 

1 Le Livre Sacre, p. 9. The name of the lightning in Quiche 
is cak ul ha, literally, "fire coming from water." 

2 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 158. 



THE AMERICAN TRINITY. 



157 



rains and the waters, ruler of the terrestrial paradise 
and the season of summer, manifested himself under 
the three attributes of the flash, the thunderbolt, and 
the thunder. 1 

But this conception of three in one was above the 
comprehension of the masses, and consequently these 
deities were also spoken of as fourfold in nature, 
three and one. Moreover, as has already been pointed 
out, the thunder god was usually ruler of the winds, 
and thus another reason for his quadruplicate nature 
was suggested. Hurakan, Haokah, Tlaloc, and pro- 
bably Heno, are plural as well as singular nouns, and 
are used as nominatives to verbs in both numbers. 
Tlaloc was appealed to as inhabiting each of the car- 
dinal points and every mountain top. His statue 
rested on a square stone pedestal, facing the east, and 
had in one hand a serpent of gold. Eibbons of sil- 
ver, crossing to form squares, covered the robe, and 
the shield was composed of feathers of four colors, 
yellow, green, red, and blue. Before it was a vase 
containing all sorts of grain; and the clouds were 
called his companions, the winds his messengers. 2 
As elsewhere, the thunderbolts were believed to be 
flints, and thus, as the emblem of fire and the storm, 
this stone figures conspicuously in their myths. 
Tohil, the god who gave the Quiches fire by shaking 
his sandals, was represented by a flint-stone. He is 
distinctly said to be the same as Quetzalcoatl, one of 
whose commonest symbols was a flint (tecpatl). Such 
a stone, in the beginning of things, fell from heaven 

1 " El rayo, el relampago, y el trueno." Gama, Des. de las dos 
Piedras, etc., ii. p. 76 : Mexico, 1832. 

2 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 23. Gama, 
ubi sup. ii. 76, 77. 



158 31YTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



to earth, and broke into 1600 pieces, each of which 
sprang up a god; 1 an ancient legend, which shadows 
forth the subjection of all things to him who gathers 
the clouds from the four corners of the earth, who 
thunders with his voice, who satisfies with his rain 
" the desolate and waste ground, and causes the tender 
herb to spring forth." This is the germ of the adora- 
tion of stones as emblems of the fecundating rains. 
This is why, for example, the Navajos use as their 
charm for rain certain long round stones, which they 
think fall from the cloud when it thunders. 2 E ' 

Mixcoatl, the Cloud Serpent, or Iztac-Mixcoatl, the 
White or Gleaming Cloud Serpent, said to have been 
the on]y divinity of the ancient Chichimecs, held in 
high houor by the Nahuas, Nicaraguans, and Otomis, 
and identical with Taras, supreme god of the Taras- 
cos and Camaxtli, god of the Teo-Chichimecs, is 
another personification of the thunder-storm. To 
this day this is the familiar name of the tropical tor- 
nado in the Mexican language. 3 He was represented, 
like Jove, with a bundle of arrows in his hand, the 
thunderbolts. Both the Nahuas and Tarascos related 
legends in which he figured as father of the race of 
man. Like other lords of the lightning he was wor- 
shipped as the dispenser of riches and the patron of 
traffic ; and in Nicaragua his image is described as 
being "engraved stones," 4 probably the supposed pro- 
ducts of the thunder. 

1 Torquemada, ibid., lib. vi. cap. 41. 

2 Senate Beport on the Indian Tribes, p. 358 : Washington, 
1867. 

3 Brasseur, Hist du Mexique, i. p. 201, and on the extent of his 
worship Waitz, Anthropol., iv. p. 144. 

1 Ovieclo, Hist, du Nicaragua, p. 47. 



CHAPTEE VI. 



THE SUPEEME GODS OF THE BED RACE. 

Analysis of American culture myths. — The Manibozho or Michabo of 
the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of Light, a hero of the 
Dawn, and their highest deity. — The myths of Ioskeha of the Iroquois, 
Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the Toltecs essentially 
the same as that of Michabo. — Other examples. — Ante-Columbian 
prophecies of the advent of a white race from the east as conquerors. — 
Rise of later culture myths under similar forms. 

rpHE philosopher Machiavelli, commenting on the 
books of Livy, lays it down as a general truth 
that every form and reform has been brought about 
by a single individual. Since a remorseless criticism 
has shorn so many heroes of their laurels, our faith 
in the maxim of the great Florentine wavers, and the 
suspicion is created that the popular fancy which 
personifies under one figure every social revolution 
is an illusion. It springs from that tendency to hero 
worship, ineradicable in the heart of the race, which 
leads every nation to have an ideal, the imagined 
author of its prosperity, the father of his country, and 
the focus of its legends. As has been hinted, history 
is not friendly to their renown, and dissipates them 
altogether into phantoms of the brain, or sadly dims 
the lustre of their fame. Arthur, bright star of 
chivalry, dwindles into a Welsh subaltern; the Cid 
Campeador, defender of the faith, sells his sword as 



160 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 

often to Moslem as to Christian, and sells it ever; 
while Siegfried and Feridun vanish into nothings. 

As elsewhere the world over, so in America many 
tribes had to tell of such a personage, some such 
august character, who taught them what they knew, 
the tillage of the soil, the properties of plants, the 
art of picture writing, the secrets of magic ; who 
founded their institutions and established their re- 
ligions , who governed them long with glory abroad 
and peace at home ; and finally, did not die, but like 
Frederick Barbarossa, Charlemagne, King Arthur, 
and all great heroes, vanished mysteriously, and still 
lives somewhere, ready at the right moment to return 
to his beloved people and lead them to victory and 
happiness. Such to the Algoukins was Michabo or 
Manibozho, to the Iroquois Ioskeha, Wasi to the 
Cherokees, Tamoi to the Caribs ; so the Mayas had 
Zamna, the Toltecs Quetzalcoatl, the Muyscas Nem- 
queteba ; such among the Aymaras was Viracocha, 
among the Mandans Numock-muckenah, and among 
the natives of the Orinoko Amalivaca ; and the cata- 
logue could be extended indefinitely. 

It is not always easy to pronounce upon these 
heroes, whether they belong to history or mythology, 
their nation's poetry or its prose. In arriving at a 
conclusion we must remember that a fiction built on 
an idea is infinitely more tenacious of life than a 
story founded on fact. Further, that if a striking 
similarity in the legends of two such heroes be dis- 
covered under circumstances which forbid the thought 
that one was derived from the other, then both are 
probably mythical. If this is the case in not two but 
in half a dozen instances, then the probability amounts 



THE STORY OF 311 CH ABO. 



101 



to a certainty, and the only task remaining is to ex- 
plain such narratives on consistent mythological 
principles. If after sifting ont all foreign and later 
traits, it appears that when first known to Europeans, 
these heroes were assigned all the attributes of high- 
est divinity, were the imagined creators and rulers of 
the world, and mightiest of spiritual powers, then 
their position must be set far higher than that of 
deified men. They must be accepted as the supreme 
gods of the red race, the analogues in the western 
continent of Jupiter, Osiris, and Odin in the eastern, 
and whatever opinions contrary to this may have 
been advanced by writers and travellers must be set 
down to the account of that prevailing ignorance of 
American mythology which has fathered so many 
other blunders. To solve these knotty points I shall 
choose for analysis the culture myths of the Algon- 
kins, the Iroquois, the Toltecs of Mexico, and the 
Aymaras or Peruvians, guided in my choice by the 
fact that these four families are the best known, and, 
in many points of view, the most important on the 
continent. 

From the remotest wilds of the northwest to the 
coast of the Atlantic, from the southern boundaries 
of Carolina to the cheerless swamps of Hudson's Bay, 
the Algonkins were never tired of gathering around 
the winter fire and repeating the story of Manibozho 
or Michabo, the Great Hare. With entire unanimity 
their various branches, the Powhatans of Yirginia, 
the Lenni Lenape of the Delaware, the warlike hordes 
of New England, the Ottawas of the far north, and 
the western tribes perhaps without exception, spoke 
of "this chimerical beast," as one of the old missiona- 
11 



162 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 

* 

ries calls it, as their common ancestor. The totem 
or clan which bore his name was looked up to with 
peculiar respect. In many of the tales which the 
whites have preserved of Michabo he seems half a 
wizzard, half a simpleton. He is full of pranks and 
wiles, but often at a loss for a meal of victuals ; ever 
itching to try his arts magic on great beasts and often 
meeting ludicrous failures therein ; envious of the 
powers of others, and constantly striving to outdo 
them in what they do best ; in short, little more 
than a malicious buffoon delighting in practical 
jokes, and abusing his superhuman powers for 
selfish and ignoble ends. But this is a low, modern, 
and corrupt version of the character of Michabo, 
bearing no more resemblance to his real and ancient 
one than the language and acts of our Saviour and 
the apostles in the coarse Mystery Plays of the Mid- 
dle Ages do to those recorded by the Evangelists. 

What he really was we must seek in the accounts 
of older travellers, in the invocations of the jossa- 
keeds or prophets, and in the part assigned to him in 
the solemn mysteries of religion. In these we find 
him portrayed as the patron and founder of the meda 
worship, 1 the inventor of picture writing, the father 
and guardian of their nation, the ruler of the winds 
even the maker and preserver of the world and 
creator of the sun and moon. From a grain of sand 
brought from the bottom of the primeval ocean, he 

1 The meda worship is the ordinary religious ritual of the Al- 
gonkins. .It consists chiefly in exhibitions of legerdemain, and 
in conjuring and exorcising demons. Ajossakeed is an inspired 
prophet who derives his power directly from the higher spirits, 
and not as the medawin, by instruction and practice. 



THE DEEDS OF MICH ABO. 163 

fashioned the habitable land and set it floating on 
the waters, till it grew to such a size that a strong- 
young wolf, running constantly, died of old age ere 
he reached its limits. Under the name Michabo Ovi- 
saketckak, the Great Hare who created the Earth, he 
was originally the highest divinity recognized by 
them, " powerful and beneficent beyond all others, 
maker of the heavens and the world." He was 
founder of the medicine hunt in which after appro- 
priate ceremonies and incantations the Indian sleeps, 
and Michabo appears to him in a dream, and tells 
him where he may readily kill game. He himself 
was a mighty hunter of old; one of his footsteps 
measured eight leagues, the Great Lakes were the 
beaver dams he built, and when the cataracts impeded 
his progress he tore them away with his hands. 
Attentively watching the spider spread its web to 
trap unwary flies, he devised the art of knitting nets 
to catch fish, and the signs and charms he tested and 
handed clown to his descendants are of marvellous 
efficacy in the chase. In the autumn, in " the moon 
of the falling leaf," ere he composes himself to his 
winter's sleep, he fills his great pipe and takes a god- 
like smoke. The balmy clouds float over the hills 
and woodlands, filling the air with the haze of the 
" Indian summer." 

Sometimes he was said to dwell in the skies with 
his brother the snow, or, like many great spirits, to 
have built his wigwam in the far north on some floe 
of ice in the Arctic Ocean, while the Chipeways 
localized his birthplace and former home to the 
Island Michilimakinac at the outlet of Lake Superior. 
But in the oldest accounts of the missionaries he was 



164 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



alleged to reside toward the east, and in the holy 
formulae of the meda craft, when the winds are 
invoked to the medicine lodge, the east is summoned 
in his name, the door opens in that direction, and 
there, at the edge of the earth, where the sun rises, 
on the shore of the infinite ocean that surrounds the 
land, he has his house and sends the luminaries 
forth on their daily journies. 1 

It is passing strange that such an insignificant 
creature as the rabbit should have received this apo- 
theosis. No explanation of it in the least satisfactory 
has ever been offered. Some have pointed it out as 
a senseless, meaningless brute worship. It leads to 
the suspicion that there may lurk here one of those 
confusions of words which have so often led to con- 
fusion of ideas in mythology. Manibozho, ISTani- 
bojou, Missibizi, Michabo, Messou, all variations of 
the same name in different dialects rendered accord- 
ing to different orthographies, scrutinize them closely 
as we may, they all seem compounded according to 
well ascertained laws of Algonkin euphony from the 
words corresponding to great and hare or rabbit, or 
the first two perhaps from spwit and hare {michi, great, 
wabos, hare, manito wabos r spirit hare, Chipeway 
dialect), and so they have invariably been translated 
even by the Indians themselves. But looking more 

1 For these particulars see the Bel. de la Nouv. France, 1667, 
p. 12, 1670, p. 93 ; Charlevoix, Journal Historique, p. 344 ; School- 
craft, Indian Tribes, v. pp. 420 sqq., and Alex. Henry, Trans, 
in Canada and the Ind. . Territories, pp. 212 sqq. These are 
decidedly the best references of the many that could be furnished. 
Peter Jones' History of tlie Ojibyoay Indians, p. 35, may also be 
consulted. 



THE EAST IN MYTHOLOGY. 



165 



narrowly at the second member of the word, it is 
clearly capable of another and very different inter- 
pretation, of an interpretation which discloses at 
once the origin and the secret meaning of the whole 
story of Michabo, in the light of which it appears 
no longer the incoherent fable of savages, but a true 
myth, instinct with nature, pregnant with matter, no- 
wise inferior to those which fascinate in the chants 
of the Eig Yeda, or the weird pages of the Edda. 

On a previous page I have emphasized with what 
might have seemed superfluous force, how prominent 
in primitive mythology is the east, the source of the 
morning, the day-spring on high, the cardinal point 
which determines and controls all others. But I did 
not lay as much stress on it as others have. "The 
whole theogony and philosophy of the ancient 
world," says Max Miiller, "centred in the Dawn, 
the mother of the bright gods, of the Sun in his 
various aspects, of the morn, the day, the spring ; 
herself the brilliant image and visage of immortality." 1 
Now it appears on attentively examining the Algon- 
kin root wab, that it gives rise to words of very 
diverse meaning, that like many others in all lan- 
guages while presenting but one form it represents ideas 
of wholly unlike origin and application, that in fact 
there are two distinct roots having this sound. One 
is the initial syllable of the word translated hare or 
rabbit, but the other means white, and from it is 
derived the words for the east, the dawn, the light, 
the day, and the morning. 2 Beyond a doubt this is 

1 Science of Language, Second Series, p. 518. 

2 Dialectic forms in Algonkin for white, are icabi, wape, wompi, 
icaubisJl, oppai ; for morning, wapan, wapaneh, opah; for east, 



166 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



the compound in the names Miehabo and Manibozho 
which therefore mean the Great Light, the Spirit of 
Light, of the Dawn, or the East, and in the literal 
sense of the word the Great White One, as indeed he 
has sometimes been called. 

In this sense all the ancient and authentic myths 
concerning him are plain and full of meaning. They 
divide themselves into two distinct cycles. In the 
one Miehabo is the spirit of light who dispels the 
darkness ; in the other as chief of the cardinal points 
he is lord of the winds, prince of the powers of the 
air, whose voice is the thunder, whose weapon the 
lightning, the supreme figure in the encounter of the 
air currents, in the unending conflict which the Dako- 
tas described as waged by the waters and the winds. 

In the first he is grandson of the moon, his father 
is the "West Wind, and his mother, a maiden, dies in 
giving him birth at the moment of conception. For 
the moon is the goddess of night, the Dawn is her 
daughter, who brings forth the morning and perishes 
herself in the act, and the West, the spirit of dark- 
ness as the East is of light, precedes and as it were 
begets the latter as the evening does the morning. 
Straightway, however, continues the legend, the son 
sought the unnatural father to revenge the death of 
his mother, and then commenced a long and desperate 

wapa, icaubun, icaubamo ; for dawn, wapa, waubun ; for day, 
wompan, oppan ; for light, oppung ; and many others similar. 
In the Abnaki dialect, loanbighen, it is white, is the customary 
idiom to express the breaking of the day (Yetromile, The Ab- 
nakis and their History, p. 27: New York, 1866). The loss in 
composition of the vowel sound represented by the English w, 
and in the French writers by the figure 8, is supported by frequent 
analogy. 



THE FIRST FOUR BROTHERS. 



167 



struggle. "It began on the mountains. The West 
was forced to give ground. Manabozho drove him 
across rivers and over mountains and lakes, and at 
last he came to the brink of this world. ' Hold,' cried 
lie, ' my son, you know my power and that it is im- 
possible to kill me.' m "What is this but the diurnal 
combat of light and darkness, carried on from what 
time " the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty 
mountain tops," across the wide world to the sunset, 
the struggle that knows no end, for both the oppo- 
nents are immortal ? 

In the second, and evidently to the native mind 
more important cycle of legends, he was represented 
as one of four brothers, the North, the South, the 
East, and the West, all born at a birth, whose mother 
died in ushering them into the world f for hardly 
has the kindling orient served to fix the cardinal 
points than it is lost and dies in the advancing day. 
Yet it is clear that he was something more than a 
personification of the east or the east wind, for it is 
repeatedly said that it was he who assigned their 
duties to all the winds, to that of the east as well as 
the others. This is a blending of his two charac- 
ters. Here too his life is a battle. No longer with 
his father, indeed, but with his brother Chakekena- 

1 Schoolcraft, Algic ResearcJies, i. pp. 135-142. 

2 The names of the four brothers, Wabun, Kabun, Kabibo- 
nokka, and Shawano, express in Algonkin both the cardinal 
points and the winds which blow from them. In another ver- 
sion of the legend, first reported by Father De Smet and quoted 
by Schoolcraft without acknowledgment, they are Nanaboojoo, 
Chipiapoos, Wabosso, and Chakekenapok. See for the support 
of the text, Schoolcraft, Algic Res., ii. p. 214 ; De Smet, Oregon 
Missions, p. 347. 



168 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 

pok, the flint-stone, whom he broke in pieces and 
scattered over the land, and changed his entrails into/ 
fruitful vines. The conflict was long and terrible.' 
The face of nature was desolated as by a tornado, 
and the gigantic boulders and loose rocks found on the 
prairies are the missiles hurled by the mighty com- 
batants. Or else his foe was the glittering prince of 
serpents whose abode was the lake; or was the 
shining Manito whose home was guarded by fiery 
serpents and a deep sea ; or was the great king of 
fishes ; all symbols of the atmospheric waters, all 
figurative descriptions of the wars of the elements. 
In these affrays the thunder and lightning are at his 
command, and with them he destroys his enemies. 
For this reason the Chipeway pictography represents 
him brandishing a rattlesnake, the symbol of the 
electric flash, 1 and sometimes they called him the 
Northwest Wind, which in the region they inhabit 
usually brings the thunder-storms. 

As ruler of the winds he was, like Quetzalcoatl, 
father and protector of all species of birds, their 
symbols. 2 He was patron of hunters, for their course 
is guided by the cardinal points. Therefore, when 
the medicine hunt had been successful, the prescribed 
. sign of gratitude to him was to scatter a handful of 
the animal's blood toward each of these. 3 As day- 
light brings vision, and to see is to know, it was no 
fable that gave him as the author of their arts, their 
wisdom, and their institutions. 

1 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 351. 

2 Schoolcraft, Algic Bes., i. p. 216. 

3 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 354. 



IROQUOIS TRADITIONS. 



169 



In effect, his story is a world-wide truth, veiled 
under a thin garb of fancy. It is but a variation of 
that narrative which every race has to tell, out of 
gratitude to that beneficent Father who everywhere 
has cared for His children. Michabo, giver of life 
and light, creator and preserver, is no apotheosis of a 
prudent chieftain, still less the fabrication of an idle 
fancy or a designing priestcraft, but in origin, deeds, 
and name the not unworthy personification of the 
purest conceptions they possessed concerning the 
Father of All. To Him at early dawn the Indian 
stretched forth his hands in prayer ; and to the sky 
or the sun as his homes, he first pointed the pipe in 
his ceremonies, rites often misinterpreted by travel- 
lers as indicative of sun worship. As later observers 
tell us to this day the Algonkin prophet builds the 
medicine lodge to face the sunrise, and in the name 
of Michabo, who there has his home, summons the 
spirits of the four quarters of the world and Grizhi- 
gooke, the day maker, to come to his fire and disclose 
the hidden things of the distant and the future : so 
the earliest explorers relate that when they asked the 
native priests who it was they invoked, what demons 
or familiars, the invariable reply was, "the Kichi- 
gouai, the genii of light, those who make the day." 1 

Our authorities on Iroquois traditions, though nu-' 
merous enough, are not *so satisfactory. The best, 
perhaps, is Father Brebeuf, a Jesuit missionary, who 
resided among the Hurons in 1626. Their culture 
myth, which he has recorded, is strikingly similar to 

1 Compare the Eel. de la Nouv. France, 1634 p. 14, 1637, p. 46, 
with Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 419. Kichigouai is the same 
word as GizMgooke, according to a different orthography. 



no 



THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



that of the Algonkins. Two brothers appear in it, 
Ioskeha and Tawiscara, names which find their mean- 
ing in the Oneida dialect as the White one and the 
Dark one. 1 They are twins, born of a virgin mother, 
who died in giving them life. Their grandmother 
was the moon, called by the Hurons Ataensic, a word 
which signifies* literally she bathes herself, and which, 
in the opinion of Father Bruyas, a most competent 
authority, is derived from the word for water. 2 

The brothers quarrelled, and finally came to 
blows ; the former using the horns of a stag, the lat- 
ter the wild rose. He of the weaker weapon was 
very naturally discomfited and sorely wounded. 
Fleeing for life, the blood gashed from him at every 
step, and as it fell turned into flint-stones. The victor 
returned to his grandmother, and established his lodge 

1 The names I&skelia and TaSiscara I venture to identify with 
the Oneida oioisske or owiska, white, and tetiucalas (tyokaras, 
tewhgarlars, Mohawk), dark or darkness. The prefix i to owisske 
is the impersonal third person singular ; the suffix ha gives a 
future sense, so that i-owisske-ha or iouskelia means "it is going 
to become white. ' ' Brebeuf gives a similar example of gaon, old ; 
a-gaon-ha, il m devenir vieux {Bel. Noun. France, 1636, p. 99). 
But "it is going to become white," meant to the Iroquois that 
the dawn was about to appear, just as wanbighen, it is white, did 
to the Abnakis (see note on page 166), and as the Eskimos say, 
kau ma wok, it is white, to express that it is daylight (Richard- 
son's Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo in his Arctic Expedition). 
Therefore, that Ioskeha is an impersonation of the light of the 
dawn admits of no dispute. 

1 The orthography of Brebeuf is aataentsic. This may be 
analyzed as follows : root aouen, water ; prefix at, il y a quelque 
chose la dedans; ataouen, se baigner ; from which comes the 
form ataouensere. (See Bruyas, Bad. Verb. Iroquceor., pp. 30, 31.) 
Here again the mythological role of the moon as the goddess of 
water comes distinctly to light. 



THE MYTH OF 10 SEE HA. 



171 



in the far east, on the borders of the great ocean, 
whence the sun comes. In time he became the father 
of mankind, and special guardian of the Iroquois. 
The earth was at first arid and sterile, but he de- 
stroyed the gigantic frog which had swallowed all 
the waters, and guided the torrents into smooth 
streams and lakes. 1 The woods he stocked with 
game ; and having learned from the great tortoise, 
who supports the world, how to make fire, taught his 
children, the Indians, this indispensable art. He it 
was who watched and watered their crops; and, in- 
deed, without his aid, says the old missionary, quite 
out of patience with such puerilities, "they think 
they could not boil a pot." Sometimes they spoke 
of him as the sun, but this only figuratively. 2 

From other writers of early elate we learn that the 
essential outlines of this myth were received by the 
Tuscaroras and the Mohawks, and as the proper 
names of the two brothers are in the Oneida dialect, 
we cannot err in considering this the national legend 
of the Iroquois stock. There is strong likelihood 
that the Taronhiawagon, he who comes from the Sky, 
of the Onondagas, who was their supreme God, who 
spoke to them in dreams, and in whose honor the 
chief festival of their calendar was celebrated about 
the winter solstice, was 3 in fact, Ioskeha under an- 

1 This offers an instance of the uniformity which prevailed in 
symbolism in the New World. The Aztecs adored the goddess 
of water under the figure of a frog carved from a single emerald ; 
or' of human form, but holding in her hand the leaf of a water 
lily ornamented with frogs. (Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, i. p. 
324.) 

2 Bel de la Nouv. France, 1636, p. 101. 



172 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



other name. 1 As to the legend of the Good and Bad 
Minds given by Cusic, to which I have referred in a 
previous chapter, and the later and wholly spurious 
myth of Hiawatha, first made public by Mr. Clark in 
his History of Onondaga (18-49), and which, in the 
graceful poem of Longfellow, is now familiar to the 
world, they are but pale and incorrect reflections of 
the early native traditions. 

So strong is the resemblance Ioskeha bears to 
Michabo, that what has been said in explanation of 
the latter will be sufficient for both. Yet I do not 
imagine that the one was copied or borrowed from 
the other, We cannot be too cautious in adopting 
such a conclusion. The two nations were remote in 
everything but geographical position. I call to mind 
another similar myth. In it a mother is also said to 
have brought forth twins, or a pair of twins, and to 
have paid for them with her life. Again the one is 
described as the bright, the other as the dark twin ; 
again it is said that they struggled one with the other 
for the mastery. Scholars, likewise, have interpreted 
the mother to mean the Dawn, the twins either Light 
and Darkness, or the Four Winds. Yet this is not 
Algonkin theology ; nor is it at all related to that of the 
Iroquois. It is the story of Sarama in the Eig Yecla, 
and was written in Sanscrit, under the shadow of the 
Himalayas, centuries before Homer. 

Such uniformity points not to a common source in 

1 Bel. de la Nouv. France, 1671, p. 17. Cusic spells it Taren- 
yawagon, and translates it Holder of the Heavens. But the name 
is evidently a compound of garonhia, sky, softened in the Onon- 
daga dialect to taronhia (see Gallatin's Vocabs. under the word 
sky), and wagin, I come. 



GOD IS LIGHT. 



173 



history, but in psychology. Man, chiefly cognizant 
of his soul through his senses, thought with an awful 
horror of the night which deprived him of the use of 
one and foreshadowed the loss of all. Therefore light 
and life were to him synonymous ; therefore all reli- 
gions promise to lead 

"From night to light, 
From night to heavenly light ;" 

therefore He who rescues is ever the Light of the 
World ; therefore it is said " to the upright ariseth 
light in darkness;" therefore everywhere the kind- 
ling Bast, the pale Dawn, is the embodiment of his 
hopes and the centre of his reminiscences. Who 
shall say that his instinct led him here astray? For 
is not, in fact, all life dependent on light? Do not 
all those marvellous and subtle forces known to the 
older chemists as the imponderable elements, without 
which not even the inorganic crystal is possible, pro- 
ceed from the rays of light ? Let us beware of that 
shallow science so ready to shout Eureka, and reve- 
rently acknowledge a mysterious intuition here dis- 
played which joins with the latest conquests of the 
human mind to repeat and emphasize that message 
which the Evangelist heard of the Spirit and declared 
unto men, that "God is Light." 1 

1 'o 0soc so-tj, The First Epistle General of John, i. 5. In 
curious analogy to these myths is that of the Eskimos of Green- 
land. In the beginning, they relate, were two brothers, one of 
whom said : " There shall be night and there shall be day, and 
men shall die, one after another." But the second said, " There 
shall be no day, but only night all the time, and men shall live 
forever." They had a long struggle, but here once more he who 
loved darkness rather than light was worsted, and the day 



174 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 

Both these heroes, let it be observed, live in the 
uttermost east; both are the mythical fathers of the 
race. To the east, therefore, should these nations 
have pointed as their original dwelling place. This 
they did in spite of history. Cusic, who takes up the 
story of the Iroquois a thousand years before the 
Christian era, locates them first in the most eastern 
region they ever possessed. While the Algonkins 
with one voice called those of their tribes living 
nearest the rising sun Abnakis, our ancestors at the 
east, or at the dawn; literally our white ancestors. 1 
I designedly emphasize this literal rendering. It 
reminds one of the white twin of Iroquois legend, 
and illustrates how the color white came to be inti- 
mately associated with the morning light and its 
beneficent effects. Moreover color has a specific 
effect on the mind; there is a music to the eye as 
well as to the ear; and white, which holds all hues 
in itself, disposes the soul to all pleasant and elevat- 
ing emotions. 2 Not fashion alone bids the bride 
wreathe her brow with orange flowers, nor was it a 
mere figure of speech that led the inspired poet to 
call his love "fairest among women," and to prophecy 
a Messiah "fairer than the children of men," fulfilled 

triumphed. (Nachrichten von Gronland aus einem Tagebuche 
vom Biscliof Paul figede, p. 157 : Kopenhagen, 1790. The date 
of the entry is 1738.) 

1 I accept without hesitation the derivation of this word, pro- 
posed and defended by that accomplished Algonkin scholar, the 
Eev. Eugene Vetromile, from loanb, white or east, and naghi an- 
cestors {The Abnakis and their History, p. 29 : New York, 1866). 

2 White light, remarks Goethe, has in it something cheerful 
and ennobling ; it possesses " eine heitere, muntere, sanft reizende 
Eigenschaft." Farbenlehre, see's 766, 770. 



THE PO WER OF WHITENESS. 



175 



in that day when He appeared "in garments so white 
as no fuller on earth conld white them." No nation 
is free from the power of this law. "White," ob- 
serves Adair of the southern Indians, "is their fixed 
emblem of peace, friendship, happiness, prosperity, 
purity, and holiness." 1 Their priests dressed in 
white robes, as did those of Peru and Mexico; the 
kings of the various species of animals were all sup- 
posed to be white; 2 the cities of refuge established 
as asylums for alleged criminals by the Cherokees in 
the manner of the Israelites were called "white 
towns," and for sacrifices animals of this color were 
ever most highly esteemed. All these sentiments 
were linked to the dawn. Language itself is proof 
of it. Many Algonkin words for east, morning, 
dawn, day, light, as we have already seen, are 
derived from a radical signifying ivhite. Or we can 
take a tongue nowise related, the Quiche, and find 
its words for east, dawn, morning, light, bright, 
glorious, happy, noble, all derived from zah, white. 
We read in their legends of the earliest men that 
they were "white children," "white sons," leading 
"a white life beyond the dawn," and the creation 
itself is attributed to the Dawn, the White One, the 
White Sacrificer of Blood. 3 But why insist upon 
the point when in European tongues we find the 

1 Hist, of the iV. Am. Indians, p. 159. 

2 La Hontan, Toy. dans VAmer. Sept., ii. p. 42. 

3 "Blanco pizote," Ximenes, p. 4, Vocabulario Quiche, s. v. 
zah. In the far north the Eskimo tongne presents the same . 
analogy. Day, morning, bright, light, lightning, all are from 
the same root (kau), signifying white (Richardson, Yocab. of 
Labrador Eskimo). 



176 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 

daybreak called Vaube, aha, from albas, white? 
Enough, for the purpose if the error of those is 
manifest, who, in such expressions, would seek sup- 
port for any theory of ancient European immigra- 
tion; enough if it displays the true meaning of those 
traditions of the advent of benevolent visitors of fair 
complexion in ante- Columbian times, which both 
Algonkins and Iroquois 1 had in common with many 
other tribes of the western continent. Their expla- 
nation will not be found in the annals of Japan, the 
triads of the Cymric bards, nor the sagas of Icelandic 
skalds, but in the propensity of the human mind to 
attribute its own origin and culture to that white- 
shining orient where sun, moon, and stars, are daily 
born in renovated glory, to that fair mother, who, at 
the cost of her own life, gives light and joy to the 
world, to the brilliant womb of Aurora, the glowing 
bosom of the Dawn. 

Even the complicated mythology of Peru yields to 
the judicious application of these principles of inter- 
pretation. Its peculiar obscurity arises from the 
policy of the Incas to blend the religions of conquered 
provinces with their own. Thus about 1350 the Inca 
Pachacutec subdued the country about Lima where 
the worship of Con and Pachacama prevailed. 2 The 

1 Some fragments of them may be found in Campanius, Acc. 
of New Sweden, 1650, book iii. chap. 11, and in Byrd, The West- - 
over Manuscripts, 1733, p. 82. They were in both instances 
alleged to have been white and bearded men, the latter probably 
a later trait in the legend. 

2 Con or Cun I have already explained to mean thunder, Con 
tici, the mythical thunder vase. Pachacama is doubtless, as M. 
Leonce Angrand has suggested, from ppacha, source, and cama, 
all, the Source of All things (Desjardins, Le Perou avant la 



CON AND PACE AC AM A. 



177 



local myth represented these as father and son, or 
brothers, children of the sun. They were without 
flesh or blood, impalpable, invisible, and incredibly 
swift of foot. Con first possessed the land, but Pacha- 
cama attacked and drove him to the north. Irritated 
at his defeat he took with him the rain, and conse- 
quently to^this day the sea-coast of Peru is largely 
an arid desert. Now when we are informed that the 
south wind, that in other words which blows to the 
north, is the actual cause of the aridity of the low- 
lands, 1 and consider the light and airy character of 
these antagonists, we cannot hesitate to accept this 
as a myth of the winds. The name of Con tici, the 
Thunder Yase, was indeed applied to Yiracocha in 
later times, but they were never identical. Yiracocha 
was the culture hero of the ancient Aymara-Quichua 
stock. He was more than that, for in their creed he 
was creator and possessor of all things. Lands and 
herds were assigned to other gods to support their 

Conq. Espagnole, p. 23, note). But he and all other writers 
have been in error in considering this identical with Pachacamac, 
nor can the latter mean creator of the world, as it has constantly 
been translated. It is a participial adjective from pacha, place, 
especially the world, and camac, present participle of camani, I 
animate*, from which also comes camakenc, the soul, and means 
animating the world. It was never used as a proper name. The 
following trochaic lines from the Quichua poem translated in 
the previous chapter, show its true meaning and correct accent : — 
Pacha riirac, World creating, ' 

Pacha camac, World animating, 

Viracocha, Viracocha, 
Camasunqui, He animates thee. 

The last word is the second transition, present tense, of camani, 
while camac is its present participle. 

' Ulloa, Memoir es Philosophiques sur V Amerique, i. p. 105. 
12 



178 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



temples, and offerings were heaped on their altars, 
but to him none. For, asked the Incas : " Shall the 
Lord and Master of the whole world need these things 
from us?" To him, says Acosta, " they did attribute 
the chief power and commandement over all things;" 
and elsewhere " in all this realm the chief idoll they 
did worship was Viracocha, and after him the Sunne." 1 
Ere sun or moon was made, he rose from the bosom 
of Lake Titicaca, and presided over the erection of 
those wondrous cities whose ruins still dot its islands 
and western shores, and whose history is totally lost 
in the night of time. He himself constructed these 
luminaries and placed them in the sky, and then 
peopled the earth with its present inhabitants. From 
the lake he journeyed westward, not without adven- 
tures, for he was attacked with murderous intent by 
the beings whom he had created. When, however, 
scorning such unequal combat, he had manifested his 
power by hurling the lightning on the hill-sides and 
consuming the forests, they recognized their maker, 
and humbled themselves before him. He was recon- 
ciled, and taught them arts and agriculture, institu- 
tions and religion, meriting the title they gave him 
of Pachayachachic, teacher of all things. At last he 
disappeared in the western ocean. Four personages, 
companions or sons, were closely connected with him. 
They rose together with him from the lake, or else 
were his first creations. These are the four mythi- 
cal civilizers of Peru, who another legend asserts 
emerged from the cave Pacarin tampu the Lodgings 

1 Acosta, Hist, of the New World, bk. v. chap. 4, bk. vi. chap. 
19, Eng. trans., 1704. 



THE STORY OF VIRACOCHA. 



179 



of the Dawn. 1 To these Viracocha gave the earth, 
to one the north, to another the south, to a third the 
east, to a fourth the west. Their names are very 
variously given, but as they .have already been iden- 
tified with the four winds, we can omit their con- 
sideration here. 2 Tradition, as has rightly been 
observed by the Inca Grarcilasso cle la Vega, 3 trans- 
ferred a portion of the story of Yiracocha to Manco 
Capac, first of the historical Incas. King Manco, 
however, was a real character, the Rudolph of Haps- 
burg of their reigning family, and flourished abput 
the eleventh century. 

There is a general resemblance between this story 
and that of Michabo. Both precede and create the 
sun, both journey to the west, overcoming opposition 
with the thunderbolt, both divide the world between 
the four winds, both were the fathers, gods, and 

1 The name is derived from tampu, corrupted by the Spaniards 
to tambo, an inn, and paccari morning, or paccarin, it dawns, 
which also has the figurative signification, it is born. It may 
therefore mean either Lodgings of the Dawn, or as the Spaniards 
usually translated it, House of Birth, or Production, Gasa de 
Producimiento. 

2 The names given by Balboa {Hist, du Perou, p. 4) and 
Montesinos (Ancien Perou, p. 5) are Manco, Cacha, Auca, 
TJchu. The meaning of Manco is unknown. The others signify, 
in their order, messenger, enemy or traitor, and the little one. 
The myth of Yiracocha is given in its most antique form by Juan 
de Betanzos, in the Historia de los Ingas, compiled in the first 
years of the conquest from the original songs and legends. It is 
quoted in Garcia, Origen de los Indios, lib. v. cap. 7. Balboa, 
Montesinos, Acosta, and others have also furnished me some 
incidents. Whether Atachuchu mentioned in the last chapter 
was not another name of Yiracocha may well be questioned. It 
is every way probable. 

3 Hist, des Incas, liv. iii. chap. 25. 



180 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



teachers of their nations. Nor does it cease here. 
Michabo, I have shown, is the white spirit of the 
Dawn. Yiracocha, all authorities translate " the fat 
or foam of the sea." The idea conveyed is of white- 
ness, foam being called fat from its color. 1 So true 
is this that to-day in Pern white men are called vira- 
cochas, and the early explorers constantly received 
the same epithet. 2 The name is a metaphor. The 
dawn rises above the horizon as the snowy foam on 
the surface of a lake. As the Algonkins spoke of 
the Abnakis, their white ancestors, as in Mexican 
legends the early Toltecs were of fair complexion, so 
the Aymaras sometimes called the first four brothers, 
viracochas, white men. 3 It is the ancient story how 

"Light 

Sprung from the deep, and from her native east 
To journey through the airy gloom began." 

The central figure of Toltec mythology is Quetzal- 
coatl. Not an author on ancient Mexico but has. 
something to say about the glorious days when he 
ruled over the land. No one denies him to have 
been a god, the god of the air, highest deity of the 
Toltecs, in whose honor was erected the pyramid of 
Cholula, grandest monument of their race. But » 
many insist that he was at first a man, some deified 
king. There were in truth many Quetz'alcoatls, for 
his high priest always bore his name, but he himself 
is a pure creation of the fancy, and all his alleged 
history is nothing but a myth.^ 

1 It is compounded of vira, fat, foam (which perhaps is akin 
to yurac, white), and cocha, a pond or lake. 

2 See Desjardins, Le Perou avant la Cong. Espagnole, p. 67. 

3 (Sromara, Hist, de las Indias, cap. 119, in Miiller. 



THE MYTH OF Q JJETZ ALCOA TL. 



181 



His emblematic name, the Bird-Serpent, and his 
rebus and cross at Palenque, I have already explained. 
Others of his titles were, Ehecatl, the air ; Yolcuat, 
the rattlesnake ; Tohil, the rumbler ; Huemac, the 
strong hand ; Nani he hecatle, lord of the four winds. 
The same dualism reappears in him that has been 
noted in his analogues elsewhere. He is both lord 
of the eastern light and the winds. 

As the former, he was born of a. virgin in the land 
of JTula or Tlapallan, in the distant Orient, and was 
high priest of that happy realm. The mo rning star 
was his symbol, and the temple of Cholula was dedi- 
cated to him expressly as the author of light. 1 As 
by days we measure time, he was the alleged inventor 
of the calendar. Like all the dawn heroes, he too 
was represented as of white complexion, clothed in 
long white robes, and, as most of the Aztec gods, with 
a full and flowing beard. 2 When his earthly work 
was done he too returned to the east, assigning as a 
reason that the sun, the ruler of Tlapallan, demanded 

1 Brasseur, Hist, du 3fexique, i. p. 302. 

2 There is no reason to lay any stress upon this feature. Beard 
was nothing uncommon among the Aztecs and many other 
nations of the New World. It was held to add dignity to the 
appearance, and therefore Sahagun, in his description of the 
Mexican idols, repeatedly alludes to their beards, and Mtiller 
quotes various authorities to show that the priests wore them 
long and full (Amer. Urreligionen, p. 429). Not only was Quet- 
zalcoatl himself reported to have been of fair complexion — white 
indeed — but the Creole historian Ixtlilxochitl says the old legends 
asserted that all the Toltecs, natives of Tollan, or Tula, as their 
name signifies, were so likewise. Still more, Aztlan, the tradi- 
tional home of the Nahuas, or Aztecs proper, means literally the 
white land, according to one of our best authorities (Buschmann, 
Ueber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen, p. 612 : Berlin, 1852). 



182 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



his presence. But the real motive was that lie had 
been overcome by Tezcatlipoca, otherwise called 
Yoalliehecatl, the wind or spirit of night, who had de- 
scended from heaven by a spider's web and presented 
his rival with a draught pretended to confer immor- 
tality, but, in fact, producing uncontrollable longing 
for home. For the wind and the light both depart 
when the gloaming draws near, or when the clouds 
spread their dark and shadowy webs along the mount- 
ains, and pour the vivifying rain upon the fields. 

In his other character, he was begot of the breath 
of Tonacateotl, sod of our flesh or subsistence, 1 or 

7 O / 

(according to Gomara) was the son of Iztac Mixcoatl, 
the white cloud serpent, the spirit of the tornado. 
Messenger of Tlaloc, god of rains, he was figuratively 
said to sweep the road for him, since in that country 
violent winds are the precursors of the wet seasons. 
Wherever he went all manner of singing birds bore 
him company, emblems of the whistling breezes. 
When he finally disappeared in the far east, he sent 
back four trusty youths who had ever shared his 
fortunes, " incomparably swift and light of foot," with 
directions to divide the earth between them and rule 
it till he should return and resume his power. When 
he would promulgate his decrees, his herald pro- 
claimed them from Tzatzitepec, the hill of shouting, 
with such a mighty voice that it could be heard a 
hundred leagues around. The arrows which he shot 
transfixed great trees, the stones he threw levelled 
forests, and when he laid his hands on the rocks the 
mark was indelible. Yet as thus emblematic of the 
thunder-storm, he possessed in full measure its better 

1 Kingsborougli, Antiquities of Mexico, v. p. 109. 



THE MYTH OF QUETZALCOATL. 



183 



attributes. By shaking his sandals he gave fire to 
men, and peace, plenty, and riches blessed his sub- 
jects. Tradition says he built many temples to Mict- 
lanteuctli, the Aztec Pluto, and at the creation of the 
sun that he slew all the other gods, for the advancing 
dawn disperses the spectral shapes of night, and yet 
all its vivifying power does but result in increasing 
the number doomed to fall before the remorseless 
stroke of death. 1 

His symbols were the bird, the serpent, the cross, 
and the flint, representing the clouds, the lightning, 
the four winds, and the thunderbolt. Perhaps, as 
Huemac, the Strong Hand, he was god of the earth- 
quakes. The Zapotecs worshipped such a deity under 
the image of this member carved from a precious 
stone, 2 calling to mind the " Kab ul," the Working 
Hand, adored by the Mayas, 3 and said to be one of 
the images of Zamna, their hero god. The human 
hand, " that divine tool," as it has been called, might 
well be regarded by the reflective mind as the teacher 
of the arts and the amulet whose magic power has 
won for man what vantage he has gained in his long 
combat with nature and his fellows. 

I might next discuss the culture myth of the Muys- 
cas, whose hero Bochica or Nemqueteba bore the 

1 The myth of Quetzalcoatl I have taken chiefly from Sahagun, 
Hist, de la JSfueva Espana, lib. i. cap. 5 ; lib. iii. caps. 3, 13, 14 ; lib. 
X. cap. 29 ; and Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 24. 
It must be remembered that the Quiche legends identify him 
positively with the Tohil of Central America (Le Lime Sacre, 
p. 247). 

2 Padilla Davila, Hist, de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico, lib. 
ii. cap. 89. 

3 Cogolludo, Hist, de YucatTian, lib. iv. cap. 8. 



184 



THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



other name Sua, the White One, the Day, the East, 
an appellation they likewise gave the Europeans on 
their arrival. He had taught them in remotest times 
how to manufacture their clothing, build their houses, 
cultivate the soil, and reckon time. When he disap- 
peared, he divided the land between four chiefs, and 
laid down many minute rules of government which 
ever after were religiously observed. 1 Or I might 
choose that of the Caribs, whose patron Tamu called 
Grandfather, and Old Man of the Sky, was a man of 
light complexion, who in the old times came from the 
east, instructed them in agriculture and arts, and dis- 
appeared in the same direction, promising them as- 
sistance in the future, and that at death he would 
receive their souls on the summit of the sacred tree, 
and transport them safely to his home in the sky. 2 
Or from the more fragmentary mythology of ruder 
nations, proof might be brought of the well nigh 
universal reception of these fundamental views. As, 
for instance, when the Mandans of the Upper Mis- 
souri speak of their first ancestor as a son of the 
West, who preserved them at the flood, and whose 

1 He is also called Idacanzas and Nemterequetaba. Some have 
maintained a distinction between Bochica and Sua, which, how- 
ever, has not been shown. The best authorities on the mythology 
of the Muyscas are Piedrahita, Hist, de las Gonq. del Nuevo Beyno 
de Granada, 1668 (who is copied by Humboldt, Vues des Cordil- 
leres, pp. 246 sqq.), and Simon, Noticias de Tierra Firme, Parte 
ii., in Kingsborough's Mexico. 

2 D'Orbigny, I? Homme Americain, ii. p. 319, and Eochefort, 
Hist. des~ Isles Antilles, p. 482 (Waitz). The name has various 
orthographies, Tamu, Tamoi, Tamou, Itamoulou, etc. Perhaps 
the Ama-livaca of the Orinoko Indians is another form. This 
personage corresponds even minutely in many points with the 
Tamu of the island Caribs. 



THE MYTH OF TUP A. 



185 



garb was always of four milk-white wolf skins ; T and 
when the Pimos, a people of the valley of the Eio 
Gila, relate that their birthplace was where the sun 
rises, that there for generations they led a joyous life, 
until their beneficent first parent disappeared in the 
heavens. From that time, say they, God lost sight- of 
them, and they wandered west, and further west till 
they reached their present seats. 2 Or I might in- 
stance the Tupis of Brazil, who were named after 
the first of men, Tupa, he who alone survived the 
flood, who was one of four brothers, who is described 
as an old man of fair complexion, un vieillard blanc, 3 
and who is now their highest divinity, ruler of the 
lightning and the storm, whose voice is the thunder, 
and who is the guardian of their nation. But is it 
not evident that these and all such legends are but 
variations of those already analyzed? 

In thus removing one by one the wrappings of 
symbolism, and displaying at the centre and summit 
of these various creeds, He who is throned in the 
sky, who comes with the dawn, who manifests him- 
self in the light and the storm, and whose ministers 

1 Catlin, Letters and Notes, Letter 22. 

2 Journal of Capt. Johnson, in Emory, Beconnoissance of New 
Mexico, p. 601. 

3 M. De Charency, in the Bevue Americaine, ii. p. 317. Tupa 
it may be observed means in Quichua, lord, or royal. Father 
Holguin gives as an example a tupa Dios, O Lord God ( Vocabu- 
lario Quichua, p. 348: Ciuclad de los Reyes, 1608). In the 
Quiche dialects tepeu is one of the common appellations of di- 
vinity and is also translated lord or ruler. We are not yet suffi- 
ciently advanced in the study of American philology to draw 
any inference from these resemblances, but they should not be 
overlooked. 



186 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 

are the four winds, I set up no new god. The ancient 
Israelites prayed to him who was seated above the 
firmament, who commanded the morning and caused 
the day-spring to know its place, who answered out 
of the whirlwind, and whose envoys were the four 
winds, the four cherubim described with such wealth 
of imagery in the introduction to the book of Ezekiel. 
The Mahometan adores u the clement and merciful 
Lord of the Daybreak," whose star is in the east, 
who rides on the storm, and whose breath is the 
wind. The primitive man in the New World also 
associated these physical phenomena as products of 
an invisible power, conceived under human form, 
called by name, worshipped as one, and of whom all 
related the same myth differing but in unimportant 
passages. This was the primeval religion. It was not 
monotheism, for there were many other gods; it was 
not pantheism, for there was no blending of the cause 
with the effects ; still less was it fetichism, an adora- 
tion of sensuous objects, for these were recognized as 
effects. It teaches us that the idea of God neither 
arose from the phenomenal world nor was sunk in 
it, as is the shallow theory of the day, but is as 
Kant long ago denned it, a conviction of a highest 
and first principle which binds all phenomena into 
one. 

One point of these legends deserves closer attention 
for the influence it exerted on the historical fortunes 
of the race. The dawn heroes were conceived as of 
fair complexion, mighty in war, and though absent 
for a season, destined to return and claim their ancient 
power. Here was one of those unconscious prophe- 
cies, pointing to the advent of a white race from the 



PROPHECIES OF HEATHENDOM. 



187 



east, that wrote the doom of the red man in letters 
of fire. Historians have marvelled at the instanta- 
neous collapse of the empires of Mexico, Peru, the 
Mayas, and the Natchez, before a handful of Spanish 
filibusters. The fact was, wherever the whites 
appeared they were connected with these ancient 
predictions of the spirit of the dawn returning to 
claim his own. Obscure and ominous prophecies, 
" texts of bodeful song," rose in the memory of the 
natives, and paralyzed their arms. 

" For a very long time," said Montezuma, at his 
first interview with Cortes, " has it been handed down 
that we are not the original possessors of this land, 
but came hither from a distant region under the 
guidance of a ruler who afterwards left us and re- 
turned. We have ever believed that some day his 
descendants would come and resume dominion over 
us. Inasmuch as you are from that direction, which 
is toward the rising of the sun, and serve so great 
a king as you describe, we believe that he is also our 
natural lord, and are ready to submit ourselves to 
him." 1 

The gloomy words of Nezahualcoyotl, a former 
prince of Tezcuco, foretelling the arrival of white 
and bearded men from the east, who would wrest the 
power from the hands of the rightful rulers and 
destroy in a day the edifice of centuries, were ringing 
in his ears. But they were not so gloomy to the 
minds of his down-trodden subjects, for that day was 
to liberate them from the thralls of servitude. There- 
fore when they first beheld the fair complexioned 



1 Cortes, Carta Primera, pp. 113, 114. 



188 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 

Spaniards, they rushed into the water to embrace 
the prows of their vessels, and despatched messen- 
gers throughout the land to proclaim the return of 
Quetzalcoatl. 1 

The noble Mexican was not alone in his presenti- 
ments. When Hernando de Soto on landing in Peru 
first met the Inca Huascar, the latter related an 
ancient prophecy which his father Huayna Capac 
had repeated on his dying bed, to the effect that in 
the reign of the thirteenth Inca, white men (viracochas) 
of surpassing strength and valor would come from 
their father the Sun and subject to their rule the 
nations of the world. "I command you," said the 
dying monarch, " to yield them homage and obedience, 
for they will be of a nature superior to ours." 2 

The natives of Haiti told Columbus of similar 
predictions long anterior to his arrival. 3 And Father 
Lizana has preserved in the original Maya tongue 
several such foreboding chants. Doubtless he has 
adapted them somewhat to proselytizing purposes, but 
they seem very likely to be close copies of authentic 
aboriginal songs, referring to the return of Zamna or 
Kukulcan, lord of the dawn and the four winds, 
worshipped at Cozumel and Palenque under the sign 
of the cross. An extract will show their character: — 

" At the close of the thirteenth Age of the world, 
While the cities of Itza and Tancah still nourish, 
The sign, of the Lord of the Sky will appear, 
The light of the dawn will illumine the land, 
And the cross will be seen by the nations of men. 



1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Bspana, lib. xii. caps. 2, 3. 

2 La Vega, Hist, des Incas, lib. ix. cap. 15. 

3 Peter Martyr, De Beb. Oceanicis, Dec. iii. lib. vii. 



THE HOPES OF A REDEEMER. 



189 



A father to you, "will He be, Itzalanos, 
A brother to you, ye natives of Tancah ; 
Receive well the bearded guests who are coming, 
Bringing the sign of the Lord from the daybreak, 
Of the Lord of the Sky, so clement yet powerful." 1 

The older writers, Gomara, Cogolludo, Yillagu- 
tierre, have taken pains to collect other instances of 
this presentiment of the arrival and domination of a 
white race. Later historians, fashionably incredulous 
of what they cannot explain, have passed them over 
in silence. That they existed there can be no donbt, 
and that they arose in the way I have stated, is 
almost proven by the fact that in Mexico, Bogota, 
and Pern, the whites were at once called from the 
proper names of the heroes of the Dawn, Suas, Vira- 
cochas, and Quetzalcoatls. 

When the chnrch of Eome had crushed remorse- 
lessly the religions of Mexico and Peru, all hope of 
the return of Quetzalcoatl and Yiracocha perished 
with the institutions of which they were the mythi- 
cal founders. But it was only to arise under new 
incarnations and later names. As well forbid the 
heart of youth to bud forth in tender love, as that of 
oppressed nationalities to cherish the faith that some 
ideal hero, some royal man, will yet arise, and break 

1 Lizana, Hist, de Nuestra Senora de Itsamal, lib. ii. cap. i. in 
Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, ii. p. 605. The prophecies are of the 
priest who bore the title — not name — chilan balam, and whose 
offices were those of divination and astrology. The verse 
claims to date from about 1450, and was very well known through- 
out Yucatan, so it is said. The number thirteen which in many 
of these prophecies is the supposed limit of the present order of 
things, is doubtless derived from the observation that thirteen 
moons complete one solar year. 



190 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



in fragments their fetters, and lead them to glory and 
honor. 

When the name of Quetzalcoatl was no longer 
heard from the teocalli of Cholula, that of Monte- 
zuma took its place. From ocean to ocean, and from 
the river Gila to the Nicaraguan lake, nearly every 
aboriginal nation still cherishes the memory of Mon- 
tezuma, not as the last unfortunate ruler of a vanished 
state, but as the prince of their golden era, their 
. Saturnian age, lord of the winds and waters, and 
founder of their institutions. When, in the depth of 
the tropical forests, the antiquary disinters some 
statue of earnest mien, the natives whisper one to 
the other, "Montezuma! Montezuma!'" In the le- 
gends of New Mexico he is the founder of the pueblos, 
and intrusted to their guardianship the sacred fire. 
Departing, he planted a tree, and bade them watch it 
well, for when that tree should fall and the fire die 
out, then he would return from the far East, and lead 
his loyal people to victory and power. When the 
, present generation saw their land glide, mile by mile, 
into the rapacious hands of the Yankees — when new 
and strange diseases desolated their homes — finally, 
when in 1846 the sacred tree was prostrated, and the 
guardian of the holy fire was found dead on its co]d 
ashes, then they thought the hour of deliverance had 
come, and every morning at earliest dawn a watcher 
mounted to the house-tops, and gazed long and 
anxiously in the lightening east, hoping to descry 
the noble form of Montezuma advancing through 

1 Squier, Travels in Nicaragua, ii. p. 35. 



THE HOPES OF A REDEEMER. 



191 



the morning beams at the head of a conquering 
army. 1 

Groaning under the iron rule of the Spaniards, the 
Peruvians would not believe that the last of the 
Incas had perished an outcast and a wanderer in the 
forests of the Cordilleras. For centuries they clung 
to the persuasion that he had but retired to another 
mighty kingdom beyond the mountains, and in due 
time would return and sweep the haughty Castilian 
back into the ocean. In 1781, a mestizo, Jose Grabriel 
Condorcanqui, of the province of Tinta, took advan- 
tage of this strong delusion, and binding around his 
forehead the scarlet fillet of the Incas, proclaimed 
himself the long lost Inca Tupac Amaru, and a true 
child of the sun. Thousands of Indians flocked to* 
his standard, and at their head he took the field, 
vowing the extermination of every soul of the hated 
race. Seized at last by the Spaniards, and condemned 
to a public execution, so profound was the reverence 
with which he had inspired his followers, so full 
their faith in his claims, that, undeterred by the 
threats of the soldiery, they prostrated themselves on 
their faces before this last of the children of the sun, 
as he passed on to a felon's death. 2 

1 Whipple, Beport on the Ind. Tribes, p. 36. Emory, Recon. 
of New Mexico, p. 64. The latter adds that among the Pueblo 
Indians, the Apaches, and Navajos, the name of Montezuma is 
' ' as familiar as Washington to us. ' ' This is the more curious, 
as neither the Pueblo Indians nor either of the other tribes are in 
any way related to the Aztec race by language, as has been 
shown by Dr. Buschman, Die Voelker und Sprachen Weu 
Mexico^s, p. 262. 

2 Humboldt, Essay on Neic Spain, bk. ii. chap, vi., Eng. 
trans. ; AnsicMen der JSfatur, ii. pp. 357, 386. 



192 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



These fancied reminiscences, these unfounded hopes, 
so vague, so child-like, let no one dismiss them as 
the babblings of ignorance. Contemplated in their 
broadest meaning as characteristics of the race of 
man, they have an interest higher than any history, 
beyond that of any poetry. They point to the recog- 
nized discrepancy between what man is, and what he 
feels he should be, must be; they are the indignant 
protests of the race against acquiescence in the 
world's evil as the world's law; they are the incohe- 
rent utterances of those yearnings for nobler condi- 
tions of existence, which no savagery, no ignorance, 
nothing but a false and lying enlightenment can 
wholly extinguish. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE MYTHS OF THE CEEATION, THE DELUGE, THE 
EPOCHS OF NATURE, AND THE LAST DAY. 

Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the Spirit on the Waters. — 
Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quiches, Mixtecs, Iroquois, Al- 
gonkins, and others. — The Flood-Myth an unconscious attempt to 
reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of matter. — Proof of this 
from American mythology. — Characteristics of American Flood-Myths. 
— The person saved usually the first man. — The number seven. — Their 
Ararats. — The role of birds. — The confusion of tongues. — The Aztec, 
Quiche, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit flood-myths. — The belief 
in Epochs of Nature a further result of this attempt at reconciliation. — 
Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, and Aztecs. — The expectation of the 
End of the World a corollary of this belief. — Views of various nations. 

flOULD the reason rest content with the belief that 
^ the universe always was as it now is, it would 
save much beating of brains. Such is the comfort- 
able condition of the Eskimos, the Rootdiggers of 
California, the most brutish specimens of humanity 
everywhere. Yain to inquire their story of creation, 
for, like the knife-grinder of anti- Jacobin renown, 
they have no story to tell. It never occurred to 
them that the earth had a beginning, or underwent 
any greater changes than those of the seasons. 1 Bat 

1 So far as this applies to the Eskimos, it might be questioned 
on the authority of Paul Egede, whose valuable Nachrichten von 
Grbnland contains several flood-myths, &c. But these Eskimos 
had had for generations intercourse with European missionaries 
and sailors, and as the other tribes of their stock were singularly 
13 



194 3IYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



no sooner does the mind begin to reflect, the intellect 
to employ itself on higher themes than the needs of 
the body, than the law of causality exerts its power, 
and the man, out of such materials as he has at hand, 
manufactures for himself a Theory of Things. 

What these materials were has been shown in the 
last few chapters. A simple primitive substance, a 
divinity to mould it — these are the requirements of 
every cosmogony. Concerning the first no nation 
ever hesitated. All agree that before time began 
water held all else in solution, covered and concealed 
everything. The reasons for this assumed priority 
of water have been already touched upon. Did a 
tribe dwell near some great sea others can be ima- 
gined. The land is limited, peopled, stable; the 
ocean fluctuating, waste, boundless. It insatiably 
swallows all rains and rivers, quenches sun and 
moon in its dark chambers, and raves against its 
bounds as a beast of prey. Awe and fear are the 
sentiments it inspires; in Aryan tongues its syno- 
nyms are the desert and the night. 1 It produces an 
impression of immensity, infinity, formlessness, and 
barren changeableness, well suited to a notion of 
chaos. It is sterile, receiving all things, producing 
nothing. Hence the necessity of a creative power to 
act upon it, as it were to impregnate its barren 
germs. Some cosmogonies find this in one, some in 
another personification of divinity. Commonest of 

devoid of corresponding traditions, it is likely that in Greenland 
they were of foreign origin. 

1 Pictet, Origines Indo-Europeennes in Michelet, La Mer. The 
latter has many eloquent and striking remarks on the impressions 
left by the great ocean. 



ATHAPASCA MYTH OF CREATION. 



195 



all is that of the wind, or its emblem the bird, types 
of the breath of life. 

Thus the venerable record in Genesis, translated 
in the authorized version "and the Spirit of God 
moved on the face of the waters," may with equal 
correctness be rendered " and a mighty wind brooded 
on the surface of the waters," presenting the picture 
of a primeval ocean fecundated by the wind as a 
bird. 1 The eagle that in the Finnish epic of Kale- 
wala floated over the waves and hatched the land, the 
egg that in Chinese legend swam hither and thither 
until it grew to a continent, the giant Ymir, the 
rustler (as wind in trees), from whose flesh, says the 
Edda, our globe was made and set to float like a 
speck in the vast sea between Muspel and Niflheim, 
all are the same tale repeated by different nations in 
different ages. But why take illustrations from the 
old world when they are so plenty in the new? 

Before the creation, said the Muscogees, a great 
body of water was alone visible. Two pigeons flew 
to and fro over its waves, and at last spied a blade of 
grass rising above the surface. Dry land gradually 
followed, and the islands and continents took their 
present shapes. 2 Whether this is an authentic abo- 
riginal myth, is not beyond question. No such 
doubt attaches to that of the Athapascas. With sin- 
gular unanimity, most of the northwest branches of 
this stock trace their descent from a raven, "a mighty 
bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were light- 

1 "Spiritus Dei incubuit superficei aquarum" is the translation 
of one writer. The word for spirit in Hebrew, as in Latin, 
originally meant wind, as I have before remarked. 

2 Schoolcraft, hid. Tribes, i. p. 266. 



196 3IYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



ning, and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. 
On his descent to the ocean, the earth instantly rose, 
and remained on the surface of the water. This 
omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety of 
animals." 1 

Very similar, but with more of poetic finish, is the 
legend of the Quiches: — 

" This is the first word and the first speech. There 
were neither men nor brutes ; neither birds, fish, nor 
crabs, stick nor stone, valley nor mountain, stubble 
nor forest, nothing but the sky. The face of the 
land was hidden. There was naught but the silent 
sea and the sky. There was nothing joined, nor any 
sound, nor thing that stirred ; neither any to do evil, 
nor to rumble in the heavens, nor a walker on foot ; 
only the silent waters, only the pacified ocean, only 
it in its calm. Nothing was but stillness, and rest, 
and darkness, and the night; nothing but the Maker 
and Moulder, the Hurler, the Bird-Serpent. In the 
waters, in a limpid twilight, covered with green 
feathers, slept the mothers and the fathers." 2 

Over this passed Hurakan, the mighty wind, and 
called out Earth ! and straightway tl$ solid land was 
there. 

The picture writings of the Mixtecs preserved a 
similar cosmogony: "In the year and in the day of 
clouds, before ever were either years or days, the 
world lay in darkness ; all things were orderless, and 
a water covered the slime and the ooze that the earth 

1 Mackenzie, Hist, of the Fur Trade, p. 83 ; Richardson, Arctic 
Expedition, p. 239. 

2 Ximenes, Or. de los Ind. de Guat., pp. 5-7. I translate freely, 
following Ximenes rather than Brasseur. 



IROQUOIS MYTH OF C RE AT 10 X. 



197 



then was." By the efforts of two winds, called, from 
astrological associations, that of Nine Serpents and 
that of Nine Caverns, personified one as a bird and 
one as a winged serpent, the waters subsided and the 
land dried. 1 

In the birds that here play such conspicuous parts, 
we cannot fail to recognize the winds and the clouds; 
but more especially the dark thunder cloud, soaring 
in space at the beginning of things, most forcible em- 
blem of the aerial powers. They are the symbols of 
that divinity which acted on the passive and sterile 
waters, the fitting result being the production of a 
universe. Other symbols of the divine could also be 
employed, and the meaning remain the same. Or were 
the fancy too helpless to suggest any, they could be 
dispensed with, and purely natural agencies take their 
place. Thus the unimaginative Iroquois narrated 
that when their primitive female ancestor was kicked 
from the sky by her irate spouse, there was as yet no 
land to receive her, but that it " suddenly bubbled up 
under her feet, and waxed bigger, so that ere long a 
whole country was perceptible." 2 Or that certain 
amphibious animals, the beaver, the otter, and the 
muskrat, seeing her descent, hastened to dive and 
bring up sufficient mud to construct an island for her 
residence. 3 The muskrat is also the simple machinery 
in the cosmogony of the Takahlis of the northwest 
coast, the Osages and some Algonkin tribes. 

These latter were, indeed, keen enough to perceive 
that there was really no creation in such an account. 

1 Garcia, Or. de los Indios, lib. v. cap. 4. 

2 Doc. Hist, of New York, iv. p. 130 (circ. 1650). 

3 Bel. de la Nouv. France, An 1636, p. 101. 



198 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



Dry land was wanting, but earth was there, though 
hidden • by boundless waters. Consequently, they 
spoke distinctly of the action of the muskrat in 
bringing it to the surface as a formation only. 
Michabo directed him, and from the mud formed 
islands and main land. But when the subject of 
creation was pressed, they replied they knew nothing 
of that, or roundly answered the questioner that he 
was talking nonsense. 1 Their myth, almost identical 
with that of their neighbors, was recognized by them 
to be not of a construction, but a reconstruction only ; 
a very judicious distinction, but one which has a 
most important corollary. A reconstruction sup- J 
poses a previous existence. This they felt, and had 
something to say about an earth anterior to this of 
ours, but one without light or human inhabitants. A 
lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly. This 
is obviously nothing but a mere and meagre fiction, 
invented to explain the origin of the primeval ocean. 
But mark it well, for this is the germ of those mar- 
vellous myths of the Epochs of Nature, the catastro- 
phes of the universe, the deluges of water and of fire, 
which have laid such strong hold on the human fancy 
in every land and in every age. 

The purpose for which this addition was made to 
the simpler legend is clear enough. It was to avoid 
the dilemma of a creation from nothing on the one 
hand, and the eternity of matter on the other. Ex 
nihilo nihil is an apothegm indorsed alike by the 
profoundest metaphysicians and the rudest savages. 
But the other horn was no easier. To escape accept- 



1 Bel. de la Nouv. France, An 1634, p. 13. 



ORIGIN OF THE FLOOD MYTH. 



139 



ing the theory that the world had ever been as it 
now is, was the only object of a legend of its forma- 
tion. As either lemma conflicts with fundamental 
laws of thought, this escape was eagerly adopted, 
and in the suggestive words of Prescott, men "sought 
relief from the oppressive idea of eternity by break- 
ing "it up into distinct cycles or periods of time." 1 
Vain but characteristic attempt of the ambitious 
mind of man ! The Hindoo philosopher reconciles 
to his mind the suspension of the world in space by 
imagining it supported by an elephant, the elephant 
by a tortoise, and the tortoise by a serpent. We 
laugh at the Hindoo, and fancy we diminish the diffi- 
culty by explaining that it revolves around the sun, 
and the sun around some far-off star. Just so the 
general mind of humanity finds some satisfaction in 
supposing a world or a series of worlds anterior to 
the present, thus escaping the insoluble enigma of 
creation by removing it indefinitely in time. 

The support lent to these views by the presence of 
marine shells on high lands, or by faint reminiscences 
of local geologic convulsions, I estimate very low. 
Savages are not inductive philosophers, and by no- 
thing short of a miracle could they preserve the 
remembrance of even the most terrible catastrophe 
beyond a few generations. Nor has any such occur- 
red within the ken of history of sufficient magnitude 
to make a very permanent or wide-spread impression. 
Not physics, but metaphysics, is the exciting cause 
of these beliefs in periodical convulsions of the globe. 
The idea of matter cannot be separated from that of 



1 Conquest of Mexico, ,i. p. 61. 



200 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 

time, and time and eternity are contradictory terms. 
Common words show this connection. "World, for 
example, in the old language waereld, from the root 
to wear, by derivation means an age or cycle (Grimm). 

In effect a myth of creation is nowhere found 
among primitive nations. It seems repugnant to 
their' reason. Dry land and animate life had a begin- 
ning, but not matter. A series of constructions and 
demolitions may conveniently be supposed for these. 
The analogy of nature, as seen in the vernal flowers 
springing up after the desolation of winter, of the 
sapling sprouting from the fallen trunk, of life every- 
where rising from death, suggests such a view. 
Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature, elabo- 
rated by ancient philosophers into the Cycles of the 
Stoics, the Great Days of Brahm, long periods of 
time rounded off by sweeping destructions, the Cata- 
clysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some 
thought in these all beings perished ; others that a 
few survived. 1 This latter and more common view 
is the origin of the myth of the deluge. How fami- 
liar such speculations were to the aborigines of 
America there is abundant evidence to show. 

The early Algonkin legends do not speak of an 
antediluvian race, nor of any family who escaped the 

' For instance, Epictetus favors the opinion that at the sol- 
stices of the great year not only all human beings, but even the 
gods, are annihilated ; and speculates whether at such times 
Jove feels lonely {Discourses, bk. iii. chap. 13). Macrobius, so 
far from coinciding with him, explains the great antiquity of 
Egyptian civilization by the hypothesis that that country is so 
happily situated between the pole and equator, as to escape both 
the deluge and conflagration of the great cycle (Somnium 
Scipionis, lib. ii. cap. 10). 



THE AMERICAN FLOOD MYTHS. 



201 



waters. Michabo, the spirit of the dawn, their su- 
preme deity, alone existed, and by his power formed 
and peopled it. Nor did their neighbors, the Dakotas, 
though firm in the belief that the globe had once 
been destroyed by the waters, suppose that any had 
escaped. 1 The same view was entertained by the 
Nicaraguans 2 and the Botocudos of Brazil. The lat- 
ter attributed its destruction to the moon falling to 
the earth from time to time. 3 

Much the most general opinion, however, was that 
some few escaped the desolating element by one of 
those means most familiar to the narrator, by ascend- 
ing some mountain, on a raft or canoe, in a cave, or 
even by climbing a tree. No doubt some of these 
legends have been modified by Christian teachings ; 
but many of them are so connected with local pecu- 
liarities and ancient religious ceremonies, that no un- 
biased student can assign them wholly to that source, 
as Professor Yater has done, even if the authorities 
for many of them were less trustworthy than they 
are. There are no more common heirlooms in the 
traditional lore of the red race. Nearly every old 
author quotes one or more of them. They present 
great uniformity of outline, and rather than engage 
in repetitions of little interest, they can be more pro- 
fitably studied in the aggregate than, in detail. 

By far the greater number represent the last de- 
struction of the world to have been by water. A few, 
however, the Takahlis of the North Pacific coast, the 
Yurucares of the Bolivian Cordilleras, and the Mbo- 

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iii. p. 263, iv. p. 230. 

2 Ovieclo, Hist, du Nicaragua, pp. 22, 27. 

3 M tiller, Amer. Urrelig., p. 254, from Max and Denis. 



202 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST BAY. 



cobi of Paraguay, attribute it to a general conflagration 
which swept, over the earth, consuming every living 
thing except a few who took refuge in a deep cave. 1 
The more common opinion of a submersion gave rise 
to those traditions of a universal flood so frequently 
recorded by travellers, and supposed by many to be 
reminiscences of that of Noah. 

There are, indeed, some points of striking similarity 
between the deluge myths of Asia and America. It 
has been called a peculiarity of the latter that in them 
the person saved is always the first man. This, though 
not without exception, is certainly the general rule. 
But these first men were usually the highest deities 
known to their nations, the only creators of the world, 
and the guardians of the race. 2 

Moreover, in the oldest Sanscrit legend of the flood 
in the Zatapatha Brahmana, Manu is also the first 
man, and by his own efforts creates offspring. 3 

A later Sanscrit work assigns to Manu the seven 
Eichis or shining ones as companions. Seven was 
also the number of persons in the ark of Noah. Cu- 

1 Morse, Rep. on the Ind. Tribes, App. p. 346; D'Orbigny, 
Frag. oVun Voyage dans VAmer. Merid., p. 512. 

2 When, as in the case of one of the Mexican Noahs, Coxcox, 
this does not seem to hold good, it is probably owing to a loss of 
the real form of the myth. Coxcox is also known by the name 
of Cipactli, Fish-god, and Huehue tonaca cipactli, Old Fish-god 
of Our Flesh. 

3 My knowledge of the Sanscrit form of the flood-myth is drawn 
principally from the dissertation of Professor Felix Neve, entitled 
La Tradition Indienne du Deluge dans sa Forme la plus ancienne, 
Paris, 1851. There is in the oldest versions no distinct reference 
to an antediluvian race, and in India Manu is by common consent 
the Adam as well as the Noah of their legends. 



THE AMERICAN ARARATS. 



203 



riously enough one Mexican and one early Peruvian 
myth give out exactly seven individuals, as saved in 
their floods. 1 This coincidence arises from the mystic 
powers attached to the number seven, derived from its 
frequent occurrence in astrology. Proof of this ap- 
pears by comparing the later and the older versions 
of this myth, either in the book of Genesis, where 
the latter is distinguished by the use of the word 
Elohim for Jehovah, 2 or the Sanscrit account in the 
Zatapatha Brahmana with those in the later Puranas. 3 
In both instances the number seven hardly or at all 
occurs in the oldest version, while it is constantly 
repeated in those of later dates. 

As the mountain or rather mountain chain of Ara- 
rat was regarded with veneration wherever the Se- 
mitic accounts were known, so in America heights 
were pointed out with becoming reverence as those 
on which the few survivors of the dreadful scenes of 
the deluge were preserved. On the Bed Eiver near 
the village of the Caddoes was one of these, a small 
natural eminence, "to which all the Indian tribes for 
a great distance around pay devout homage," accord- 
ing to Dr. Sibley. 4 The Cerro Naztarny on the Eio 
Grande, the peak of Old Zuni in New Mexico, that 
of Colhuacan on the Pacific Coast, Mount Apoala in 

1 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, i. p. 88 ; Codex Vaticanus, No. 
3776, in Kingsborough. 

2 And also various peculiarities of style and language lost in 
translation. The two accounts of the Deluge are given side by 
side in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible under the word Pen- 
tateuch. 

3 See the dissertation of Prof. Neve referred to above. 

i American State Papers, Indian Affairs, i. p. 729. Date of 
legend, 1801. 



204 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 

Upper Mixteca, and Mount Neba in the province of 
Guaymi, are some of many elevations asserted by the 
neighboring nations to have been places of refuge for 
their ancestors when the fountains of the great deep 
broke forth. 

One of the Mexican traditions related by Torque - 
mada identified this with the mountain of Tlaloc in 
the terrestrial paradise, and added that one of the 
seven demigods who escaped commenced the pyramid 
of Cholula in its memory. He intended that its 
summit should reach the clouds, but the gods, angry 
at his presumption, drove away the builders with 
lightning. This has a suspicious resemblance to 
Bible stories. Equally fabulous was the retreat of 
the Araucanians. It was a three-peaked mountain 
which had the property of floating on water, called 
Theg-Theg, the Thunderer. This they believed would 
preserve them in the next as it did in the last cata- 
clysm, and as its only inconvenience was that it ap- 
proached too near the sun, they always kept on hand 
wooden bowls to use as parasols. 1 

The intimate connection that once existed between 
the myths of the deluge and those of the creation is 
illustrated by the part assigned to birds in so many 
Of them. They fly to and fro over the waves ere any 
land appears, though they lose in great measure the 
significance of bringing it forth, attached to them in 
the cosmogonies as emblems of the divine spirit. 
The dove in the Hebrew account appears in that of 
the Algonkins as a raven, which Michabo sent out 
to search for land before the muskrat brought it to 



' Molina, Hist, of Chili, ii. p. 82. 



THE BIRD SYMBOL. 



205 



him from the bottom. A raven also in the Atha- 
pascan myth saved their ancestors from the general 
flood, and in this instance it is distinctly identified 
with the mighty thunder bird, who at the beginning 
ordered the earth from the depths. Prometheus-like, 
it brought fire from heaven, and saved them from 
a second death by cold. 1 Precisely the same benefi- 
cent actions were attributed by the Natchez to the 
small red cardinal bird, 2 and by the Mandans and 
Cherokees an active participation in the event was 
assigned to wild pigeons. The Navajos and Aztecs 
thought that instead of being drowned by the waters 
the human race were transformed into birds and thus 
escaped. In all these and similar legends, the bird is 
a relic of the cosmogonal myth which explained the 
origin of the world from the action of the winds, 
under the image of the bird, on the primeval ocean. 

The Mexican Codex Yaticanus No. 3738 represents 
after the picture of the deluge a bird perched on the 
summit of a tree, and at its foot men in the act of 
marching. This has been interpreted to mean that 
after the deluge men were dumb until a dove distri- 
buted to them the gift of speech. The New Mexican 
tribes related that all except the leader of those who 
escaped to the mountains lost the power of utterance 
by terror, 1 and the Quiches that the antediluvian 
race were "puppets, men of wood, without intelli- 
gence or language." These stories, so closely re- 
sembling that of the confusion of tongues at the tower 
of Babel or Borsippa, are of doubtful authenticity. 

1 Kichardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 239. 

2 Dumont, Mems. Hist, sur la Louisiane, i. p. 163. 

3 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 686. 



• 206 3IYTIIS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 

The first is an entirely erroneous interpretation, as 
has been shown by Senor Karnirez, director of the 
Museum of Antiquities at Mexico. The name of the 
bird in the Aztec tongue was identical with the word 
departure, and this is its signification in the painting. 1 

Stories of giants in the days of old, figures of 
mighty proportions looming up through the mist of 
ages, are common property to every nation. The 
Mexicans and Peruvians had them as well as others, 
but their connection with the legends of the flood 
and the creation is incidental and secondary. Were 
the case otherwise, it would offer no additional point 
of similarity to the Hebrew myth, for the word 
rendered giants in the phrase, " and there were giants 
in those days," has no such meaning in the original. 
It is a blunder which crept into the Septuagint, and 
has been cherished ever since, along with so many 
others in the received text. 

A few specimens will serve as examples of all these 
American flood myths. The Abbe Brasseur has 
translated one from the Codex Chimalpopoca, a work 
in the Kahuatl language of Ancient Mexico, written 
about half a century after the conquest. It is as 
_ follows: — 

" And this year was that of Ce-calli, and on the 
first day all was lost. The mountain itself was sub- 
merged in the water, and the water remained tranquil 
for fifty-two springs. 

" Now towards the close of the year, Titlahuan 
had forewarned the man named Nata and his wife 
named Nena, saying, 'Make no more pulque, but 
straightway hollow out a large cypress, and enter it 

1 Desjardins, Le Perou avant la Conq. Mpagn., p. 27. 



THE QUICHE FLOOD- MYTH. 



207 



when in the month Tozoztli the water shall approach 
the sky.' They entered it, and when Titlacahuan 
had closed the door he said, ' Thou shalt eat but a 
single ear of maize, and thy wife but one also.' 

" As soon as they had finished [eating], they went 
forth and the water was tranquil ; for the log did not 
move any more ; and opening it they saw many fish. 

"Then they built a fire, rubbing together pieces of 
wood, and they roasted the fish. The gods Citlalli- 
nicue and Citlallatonac looking below exclaimed, 
' Divine Lord, what means that fire below ? Why 
do they thus smoke the heavens ?' 

" Straightway descended Titlacahuan Tezcatlipoca, 
and commenced to scold, saying, ' What is this fire 
doing here?' And seizing the fishes he moulded 
their hinder parts and changed their heads, and they 
were at once transformed into dogs." 1 

That found in the oft quoted legends of the Quiches 
is to this effect : — 

" Then by the will of the Heart of Heaven the 
waters were swollen and a great flood came upon the 
mannikins of wood. For they did not think nor 
speak of the Creator who had created them, and who 
had caused their birth. They were drowned, and a 
thick resin fell from heaven. 

" The bird Xecotcovach tore out their eyes ; the 
bird Camulatz cut off their heads; the bird Cotzbalam 
devoured their flesh ; the bird Tecumbalam broke 
their bones and sinews, and ground them into 
powder." 2 

1 Cod. Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, Pieces 
Justificatives. 

2 These four birds, whose names have lost their signification, 



208 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



" Because they had not thought of their Mother 
and Father, the Heart of Heaven, whose name is 
Hurakan, therefore the face of the earth, grew dark 
and a pouring rain commenced, raining by day, rain- 
ing by night. 

" Then all sorts of beings, little and great, gathered 
together to abuse the men to their faces ; and all 
spoke, their mill-stones, their plates, their cups, their 
dogs, their hens. 

" Said the dogs and hens, ' Very badly have you 
treated us, and you have bitten us. Now we bite 
you in turn.' 

" Said the mill-stones, ' Very much were we tor- 
mented by you, and daily, daily, night and da}^. it 
was squeak, squeak, screech, screech, for your sake. 
Now yourselves shall feel our strength, and we will 
grind your flesh, and make meal of your bodies,' said 
the mill-stones. 1 

" And this is what the dogs said, ' Why did you 
not give us our food ? No sooner did we come near 
than you drove us away, and the stick was always 
within reach when you were eating, because, forsooth, 
we were not able to talk. Now we will use our teeth 
and eat you,' said the dogs, tearing their faces. 

" And the cups and dishes said, ' Pain and misery 
you gave us, smoking our tops and sides, cooking us 

represent doubtless the four winds, or the four rivers, which, as 
in so many legends, are the active agents in overwhelming the 
world in its great crises. 

1 The word rendered mill-stone, in the original means those 
large hollowed stones on which the women were accustomed to 
bruise the maize. The imitative sounds for which I have substi- 
tuted others in English, are in Quiche, holt, Jioli, huqui, huqui. 



THE A L G ONKIN FLOOD- MYTH . 



209 



over tile fire, burning and hurting us as if we had no- 
feeling. 1 Now it is your turn, and you shall burn,' 
said the cups insultingly. 

" Then ran the men hither and thither in despair. 
They climbed to the roofs of the houses, but the 
houses crumbled under their feet; they tried to 
mount to the tops of the trees, but the trees hurled 
them far from them; they sought refuge in the 
caverns, but the caverns shut before them. 

" Thus was accomplished the ruin of this race, 
destined to be destroyed and overthrown ; thus were 
they given over to destruction and contempt. And 
it is said that their posterity are those little monkeys 
who live in the woods." 2 

The Algonkin tradition has often been referred to. 
Many versions of it are extant, the oldest and most 
authentic of which is that translated from the Mon- 
tagnais dialect by Father le Jeune, in 1634. 

" One day as Messou was hunting, the wolves which 
he used as dogs entered a great lake and were detained 
there. 

" Messou looking for them everywhere, a bird said 
to him, ' I see them in the middle of this lake.' 

" He entered the lake to rescue them, but the lake 
overflowing its banks covered the land and destroyed 
the world. 

" Messou, very much astonished at this, sent out 
.the raven to find a piece of earth wherewith to re- 

1 Brasseur translates "quoique nous ne sentissions rien," but 
Ximenes, "nos quernasteis, y sentimos el dolor." As far as I 
can make out the original, it is the negative conditional as I have 
given it in the text. 

2 Le Livre Sacre, p. 27 ; Ximenes, Or. de los Indios, p. 13. 

14 



210 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



build the land, but the bird could find none ; then he 
ordered the otter to dive for some, but the animal 
returned empty ; at last he sent down the muskrat, 
who came back with ever so small a piece, which, 
however, was enough for Messou to form the land on 
which we are. 

" The trees having lost their branches, he shot 
arrows at their naked trunks which became their 
limbs, revenged himself on those who had detained 
his wolves, and having married the muskrat, by it 
peopled the world." 

Finally may be given the meagre legend of the 
Tupis of Brazil, as heard by Hans Staden, a prisoner 
among them about 1550, and Coreal, a later voyager. 
Their ancient songs relate that a long time ago a 
certain very powerful Mair, that is to say, a stranger, 
who bitterly hated their ancestors, compassed their 
destruction by a violent inundation. Only a very 
few succeeded in escaping — some by climbing trees, 
others in caves. When the waters subsided the 
remnant came together, and by gradual increase 
populated the world. 1 

1 The American nations among whom a distinct and well- 
authenticated myth of the deluge was found are as follows : Atha- 
pascas, Algonkins, Iroquois, Cherokees, Chikasaws, Caddos, 
Natchez, Dakotas, Apaches, Navajos, Mandans, Pueblo Indians, 
Aztecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Tlascalans, Mechoacans, Toltecs, 
Nahuas, Mayas, Quiches, Haitians, natives of Darien and Popo- 
yan, Muyscas, Quichuas, Tuppinambas, Achaguas, Araucanians, 
and doubtless others. The article by M. de Charency in the 
Revue Americaine, Le Deluge, d'apres les Traditions Indiennes 
' de V Amerique du Nord, contains some valuable extracts, but is 
marred by a lack of criticism of sources, and makes no attempt 
at analysis, nor offers for their existence a rational explana- 
tion. 



THE TUPI FLOOD-MYTH 



Or, it is given by an equally ancient authority as 
follows : — 

" Monan, without beginning or end, author of all 
that is, seeing the ingratitude of men, and their con- 
tempt for him who had made them thus joyous, 
withdrew from them, and sent upon them tata, the 
divine fire, which burned all that was on the surface 
of the earth. He swept about the fire in such a way 
that in places he raised mountains, and in others dag 
valleys. Of all men one alone, Irin Monge, was 
saved, whom Monan carried into the heaven. He, 
seeing all things destroyed, spoke thus to Monan : 
' Wilt thou also destroy the heavens and their garni- 
ture? Alas! henceforth where will be our home? 
Why should I live, since* there is none other of my 
kind?' Then Monan was so filled with pity that he 
poured a deluging rain on the earth, which quenched 
the fire, and, flowing from all sides, formed the ocean, 
which we call parana, the bitter waters." 1 

In these narratives I have not attempted to soften 
the asperities nor conceal the childishness which run 
through them. But there is no occasion to be aston- 
ished at these peculiarities, nor to found upon them 
any disadvantageous opinion of the mental powers of 
their authors and believers. We can go back to the 

' line Fete Bresilienne celebre a Rouen en 1550, par M. Ferdi- 
nand Denis, p. 82 (quoted in the Revue Americaine, ii. p. 317). 
The native words in this account guarantee its authenticity. In 
the Tupi language, lata means fire ; par ana, ocean ; Monan, 
perhaps from mondne, to mingle, to temper, as the potter the 
clay {Bias, Biccionario da Lingua Tupy : Lipsia, 1858). Irin 
monge may be an old form from mongat-iron, to set in order, to 
restore, to improve {Martius, Beitrage zur Ethnographic und 
Sprachenkunde Amerika's, ii. p. 70). 



212 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AXD LAST DAY. 



cradle of our own race in Central Asia, and find tra- 
ditions every whit as infantile. I cannot refrain from 
adding the earliest Aryan myth of the same great 
occurrence, as it is handed down to us in ancient 
Sanscrit literature. It will be seen that it is little, if 
at all, superior to those just rehearsed. 

"Early in the morning they brought to Manu 
water to wash himself; when he had well washed, a 
fish came into his hands. 

" It said to him these words : ' Take care of me ; I 
will save thee.' 'What wilt thou save me from?' 
' A deluge will sweep away all creatures; I wish thee 
to escape.' 'But how shall I take care of thee?' 

"The fish said: 'While we are small there is 
more than one danger of death, for one fish swallows 
another. Thou must, in the first place, put me in a 
vase. Then, when I shall exceed it in size, thou 
must dig a deep ditch, and place me in it. When 
I grow too large for it, throw me in the sea, for I shall 
then be beyond the danger of death.' 

"Soon it became a great fish; it grew, in fact, 
astonishingly. Then it said to Manu, 'In such a 
year the Deluge will come. Thou must build a ves- 
sel, and then pay nle homage. When the waters of 
the Deluge mount up, enter the vessel. I will save 
thee.' 

" When Manu had thus taken care of the fish, he 
put it in the sea. The same year that the fish had 
said, in this very year, having built the vessel, he 
paid the fish homage. Then the Deluge mounting, 
he entered the vessel. The fish swam near him. To 
its horn Manu fastened the ship's rope, with which 
the fish passed the Mountain of the North. 



THE EPOCHS OF NATURE. 



213 



" The fish said, ' See ! I have saved thee. Fasten 
the vessel to a tree, so that the water does not float 
thee onward when thou art on the mountain top. As 
the water decreases, thou wilt descend little by little.' 
Thus Manu descended gradually. Therefore to the 
mountain of the north remains the name, Descent of 
Manu. The Deluge had destroyed all creatures ; 
Manu survived alone." 1 

Hitherto I have spoken only of the last convulsion 
which swept over the face of the globe, and of but 
one cycle which preceded the present. Most of the 
more savage tribes contented themselves with this, 
but it is instructive to observe how, as they advanced 
in culture, and the mind dwelt more intently on the 
great problems of Life and Time, they were impelled 
to remove further and further the dim and mysterious 
Beginning. The Peruvians imagined that two de- 
structions had taken place, the first by a famine, the 
second by a flood — according to some a few only 
escaping— but, after the more widely accepted opin- 
ion, accompanied by the absolute extirpation of the 
race. Three eggs, which dropped from heaven, 
hatched out the present race ; one of gold, from which 
came the priests; one of silver, which produced the 
warriors ; and the last of copper, source of the com- 
mon people. 2 

1 Professor Neve, ubi supra, from the Zatapatha Bralimana. 

2 Avendano, Sermones, Lima, 1648, in Eivero and Tschudi, 
Peruv. Antiqs., p. 114. In the year 1600, Ohate found on the 
coast of California a tribe whose idol held in one hand a shell 
containing three eggs, in the other an ear of maize, while before 
it was placed a cup of water. Yizcaino, who visited the same 
people a few years afterwards, mentions that they kept in their 
temples tame ravens, and looked upon them as sacred birds 



214 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



The Mayas of Yucatan increased the previous 
worlds by one, making the present the fourth. Two 
cycles had terminated by devastating plagues. They 
were called "the sudden deaths," for it was said so 
swift and mortal was the pest, that the buzzards and 
other foul birds dwelt in the houses of the cities, and 
ate the bodies of their former owners. The third 
closed either by a hurricane, which blew from all 
four of the cardinal points at once, or else, as others 
said, by an inundation, which swept across the world, 
swallowing all things in its mountainous surges. 1 

As might be expected, the vigorous intellects of 
the Aztecs impressed upon this myth a fixity of out- 
line nowhere else met with on the continent, and 
wove it intimately into their astrological reveries and 
religious theories. Unaware of its prevalence under 
more rudimentary forms throughout the continent, 
Alexander von Humboldt observed that, " of all the 
traits of analogy which can be pointed out between 
the monuments, manners, aud traditions of Asia and 
America, the most striking is that offered by the 
Mexican mythology in the cosmogonical fiction of 
the periodical destructions and regenerations of the 

(Torquemada, Man. Ind., lib. v. cap. 40 in Waitz). Thus, in all 
parts of the continent do we find the bird, as a symbol of the 
clouds, associated with the rains and the harvests. 

1 The deluge was called hun yecil, which, according to Cogol- 
ludo, means the inundation of the trees, for all the forests were 
swept away (Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 5). Bishop Landa 
adds, to substantiate the legend, that all the woods of the penin- 
sula appear as if they had been planted at one time, and that to 
look at them one would say they had been trimmed with scissors 
(Bel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, 58, 60). 



THE AZTEC SUXS. 



215 



universe." 1 Yet it is but the same fiction that ex- 
isted elsewhere, somewhat more definitely outlined. 
There exists great discrepancy between the different 
authorities, both as to the number of Aztec ages or 
Suns, as they were called, their durations, their ter- 
minations, and their names. The preponderance of 
testimony is in favor of four antecedent cycles, the 
present being the fifth. The interval from the first 
creation to the commencement of the present epoch, 
owing to the equivocal meaning of the numeral signs 
expressing it in the picture writings, may have been 
either 15228, 2316, or 1404 solar years. Why these 
numbers should have been chosen, no one has 
guessed. It has been looked for in combinations of 
numbers connected with the calendar, but so far in 
vain. 

While most authorities agree as to the character 
of the destructions which terminated the suns, they 
vary much as to their sequence. Water, winds, fire, 
and hunger, are the agencies, and in one Codex (Vati- 
canus) occur in this order. Grama gives the sequence, 
hunger, winds, fire, and water; Humboldt hunger, fire, 
winds, and water ; Boturini water, hunger, winds, 
fire. As the cycle ending by a famine, is called the 
Age of Earth, Ternaux-Compans, the distinguished 
French Americaniste, has imagined that the four Suns 
correspond mystically to the domination exercised in 
turn over the world by its four constituent elements. 
But proof is wanting that Aztec philosophers knew 
the theory on which this explanation reposes. 

Baron Humboldt suggested that the suns were 

1 Vues des Cordilleres, p. 202. 



216 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



"fictions of mythological astronomy, modified either 
by obscure reminiscences of some great revolution 
suffered by our planet, or by physical hypotheses, 
suggested by the sight of marine petrifactions and 
fossil remains," 1 while the Abbe Brasseur, in his late 
works on ancient Mexico, interprets them as exagge- 
rated references to historical events. As no solution 
can be accepted not equally applicable to the same 
myth as it appears in Yucatan, Peru, and the hunting 
tribes, and to the exactly parallel teachings of the 
Eclda, 2 the Stoics, the Celts, and the Brahmans, both 
of these must be rejected. And although the Hindoo 
legend is so close to the Aztec, that it, too, defines 
four ages, each terminating by a general catastrophe, 
and each catastrophe exactly the same in both, 3 yet 
this is not at all indicative of a derivation from one 
original, but simply an illustration how the human 
mind, under the stimulus of the same intellectual 
cravings, produces like results. What these cravings 
are has already been shown. 

The reason for adopting four ages, thus making the 

1 Ubi sup., p. 207. 

2 The Scandinavians believed the universe had been destroyed 
nine times : — 

Ni Verdener yeg husker, 
Og ni Himle, 

says the Voluspa (i. 2, in Klee, Le Deluge, p. 220). I observe 
some English writers have supposed from these ljnes that the 
Northmen believed in the existence of nine abodes for the 
blessed. Such is not the sense of the original. 

3 At least this is the doctrine of one of the Shastas. The race, 
it teaches, has been destroyed four times ; first by water, secondly 
by winds, thirdly the earth swallowed them, and lastly fire con- 
sumed them (Sepp., Heidenthum und Christenthum, i. p. 191). 



THE AZTEC SUXS. 



217 



present the fifth, probably arose from the sacredness 
of that number in general ; but directly, because this 
was the number of secular days in the Mexican week. 
A parallel is offered by the Hebrew narrative. In it 
six epochs or days precede the seventh or present 
cycle, in which the creative power rests. This latter 
corresponded to the Jewish Sabbath, the day of re- 
pose ; and in the Mexican calendar each fifth day was 
also a clay of repose, employed in marketing and 
pleasure. 

Doubtless the theory of the Ages of the world 
was long in vogue among the Aztecs before it re- 
ceived the definite form in which we now have it ; 
and as this was acquired long after the calendar was 
fixed, it is every way probable that the latter was 
used as a guide to the former. Echevarria, a good 
authority on such matters, says the number of the 
Suns was agreed upon at a congress of astrologists, 
within the memory of tradition. 1 Now in the calen- 
dar, these signs occur in the order, earth, air, water, 
fire, corresponding to the days distinguished by the 
symbols house, rabbit, reed, and flint. This se- 
quence, commencing with Tochtli (rabbit, air), is that 
given as that of the Suns in the Codex Chimalpopoca, 
translated by Brasseur, though it seems a taint of 
European teaching, when it is added that on the 
seventh day of the creation man was formed. 2 

Neither Jews nor Aztecs, nor indeed any American 
nation, appear to have supposed, with some Of the 
old philosophers, that the present was an exact repe- 

1 Echeyarria y Yeitia, Hist, .de la Nueva Es'pana^ lib. i. cap. 4, 
in Waitz. 

2 Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique,\i\. p. 495. 



218 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



tition of previous cycles, 1 but rather that each was an 
improvement on the preceding, a step in endless pro- 
gress. Nor did either connect these beliefs with 
astronomical reveries of a great year, defined by the 
return of the heavenly bodies to one relative position 
in the heavens. The latter seems characteristic of 
the realism of Europe, the former of the idealism of 
the Orient ; both inconsistent with the meagre astro- 
nomy and more scanty metaphysics of the red race. 

The expectation of the end of the world is a natu- 
ral complement to the belief in periodical destruc- 
tions of our globe. As at certain times past the equi- 
poise of nature was lost, and the elements breaking the 
chain of laws that bound them ran riot over the uni- 
verse, involving all life in one mad havoc and deso- 
lation, so in the future we have to expect that day of 
doom, when the ocean tides shall obey no shore, but 
overwhelm the continents with their mountainous 
billows, or the fire, now chafing in volcanic craters 
and smoking springs, will leap forth on the forests 
and grassy meadows, wrapping all things in a wind- 
ing sheet of flame, and melting the very elements 
with fervid heat. Then, in the language of the 
Norse prophetess, "shall the sun grow dark, the land 
sink in the waters, the bright stars be quenched, and 
high flames climb heaven itself." 2 These fearful fore- 
boding^sjiave cast their dark shadow on every litera- 

1 The contrary has indeed been inferred from such expressions 
of the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes as, "that which hath 
been, is now, and that which is to be, hath already been" (chap, 
iii. 15), and the like, but they are susceptible of an application 
entirely subjective. 

2 Voluspa, xiv. 51, in K\ee r Le Deluge. 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



219 



ture. The seeress of the north does but paint in 
wilder colors the terrible pictures of Seneca, 1 and the 
sibyl of the capitol only re-echoes the inspired pre- 
dictions of Malachi. Well has the Christian poet 
said : — ■ 

Dies irse, dies ilia, 
Solvet sseclum in favilla, 
Testis David cum Sibyla. 

Savage races, isolated in the impenetrable forests 
of another continent, could not escape this fearful 
looking for of destruction to come. It oppressed 
their souls like a weight of lead. On the last night 
of each cycle of fifty-two years, the Aztecs extin- 
guished every fire, and proceeded, in solemn proces- 
sion, to some sacred spot. Then the priests, with 
awe and trembling, sought to kindle a new fire by 
friction. Momentous was the endeavor, for did it 
fail, their fathers had taught them on the morrow no 
sun would rise, and darkness, death, and the waters 
would descend forever on this beautiful world. 

The same terror inspired the Peruvians at every * 
eclipse, for some day, taught the Amautas, the 
shadow will veil the sun forever, and land, moon, 
and stars will be wrapt in the vortex of a devour- 
ing conflagration to know no regeneration ; or a 
drought will wither every herb of the field, suck v 
up the waters, and leave the race to perish to the 
last creature ; or the moon will fall from her place 
in the heavens and involve all things in her own 
ruin, a figure of speech meaning that the waters 



1 Natur. Qucestiones, iii. cap. 27. 



220 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



would submerge the land. 1 In that dreadful day, 
thought the Algonkins, when in anger Michabo will 
send a mortal pestilence to destroy the nations, or, 
stamping his foot on the ground, flames will burst 
forth to consume the habitable land, only a pair, or 
only, at most, those who have maintained inviolate 
the institutions he ordained, will he protect and pre- 
serve to inhabit the new world he will then fabricate. 
Therefore they do not speak of this catastrophe as 
the end of the world, but use one of those nice gram- 
matical distinctions so frequent in American abori- 
ginal languages, and which can only be imitated, not 
interpreted, in ours, signifying " when it will be near 
its end," "when it will no longer be available for 
man." 2 

An ancient prophecy handed down from their 
ancestors warns the Winnebagoes that their nation 
shall be annihilated at the close of the thirteenth 
generation. Ten have already passed, and that now 
living has appointed ceremonies to propitiate the 
powers of heaven, and mitigate its stern decree. 3 
Well m&y they be about it, for there is a gloomy 
probability that the warning came from no false 
prophet. Few tribes were destitute of such presenti- 
ments. The Chikasaw, the Mandans of the Missouri, 
the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the Muyscas of 
Bogota, the Botocudos of Brazil, the Araucanians of 
Chili, have been asserted on testimony that leaves no 

1 Velasco, Hist, du Boyaume du Quito, p. 105 ; Navarrete, 
Viages, iii. p. 444. 

2 Bel. de la Nouv. France, An 1637, p. 54 ; Schoolcraft, Ind. 
Tribes, i. p. 319, iv. p. 420. 

3 Schoolcraft, ibid., iv. p. 240. 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



221 



room for scepticism, to have entertained such fore- 
bodings from immemorial time. Enough for the 
purpose if the list is closed with the prediction of a 
Maya priest, cherished by the inhabitants of Yucatan 
long before the Spaniard desolated their stately cities. 
It is one of those preserved by Father Lizana, cure 
of Itzamal, and of which he gives the original. 
Other witnesses inform us that this nation "had a 
tradition that the world would end," 1 and probably, 
like the Greeks and Aztecs, they supposed the gods 
would perish with it. 

"At the close of the ages, it hath been decreed, 
Shall perish and vanish each weak god of men, 
And the world shall be purged with a ravening fire. 
Happy the man in that terrible day, 
Who bewails with contrition the sins of his life, 2 
And meets without flinching the fiery ordeal." 



1 Cogolludo, Hist, de YucatJian, lib. iv. cap. 7. 

2 The Spanish of Lizana is — 

" En la ultima edad, segun esta determinado, 
Avra fin el culto de dioses vanos ; 
Y el mundo sera purificado con fuego. 
El que esto viere sera llamado dichoso 
Si con dolor llorare sus pecaclos." 

(Hist, de Nuestra Senora de Itzamal, in Brasseur, Hist, du 
Mexique, ii. p. 603). I have attempted to obtain a more literal 
rendering from the original Maya, but have not been successful. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 



THE OKIG-IN OF MAN. 

Usually man is the Earth-born, both in language and myths. — Illustra- 
tions from the legends of the Caribs, Apalachians, Iroquois, Quichuas, 
Aztecs, and others. — The underworld. — Man the product of one of the 
primal creative powers, the Spirit, or the Water, in the myths of the 
Athapascas, Eskimos, Moxos, and others. — Never literally derived from 
an inferior species. 

0 man can escape the importunate question, 
whence am I ? The first replies framed to 
meet it possess an interest to the thoughtful mind, 
beyond that of mere fables. They illustrate the posi- 
tion in creation claimed by our race, and the early 
workings of self-consciousness. Often the oldest 
terms for man are synopses of these replies, and 
merit a more than passing contemplation. 

The seed is hidden in the earth. Warmed by the 
sun, watered by the rain, presently it bursts its dark 
prison-house, unfolds its delicate leaves, blossoms, 
and matures its fruit. Its work done, the earth 
draws it to itself again, resolves the various struc- 
tures into their original mould, and the unending 
round recommences. 

This is the marvellous process that struck the pri- 
mitive mind. Out of the Earth rises life, to it it 
returns. She it is who guards all germs, nourishes 
all beings. The Aztecs painted her as a woman with 
countless breasts, the Peruvians called her Mama 



THE WORD FOR 3IAX. 



223 



Allpa, mother Earth. Homo, Adam, chamai genes, what 
do all these words mean but the earth-born, the son 
of the soil, repeated in the poetic language of 
Attica in anthropos, he who springs up as a flower ? 

The word that corresponds to the Latin homo in 
American languages has such singular uniformity in 
so many of them, that we might be tempted to regard 
it as a fragment of some ancient and common tongue, 
their parent stem. In the Eskimo it is inuk, innuk, 
plural innuit ; in Athapasca it is dinni, tenne ; in Al- 
gonkin, mini, lenni, inwi ; in Iroquois, onwi, eniha ; 
in the Otomi of Mexico n-aniehe ; in the Maya, inic, 
winic, winah ; all in North America, and the number 
might be extended. Of these only the last mentioned 
can plausibly be traced to a radical (unless the Iro- 
quois onwi is from onnha life, onnhe to live). This 
Father Ximenes derives from win, meaning to grow, 
to gain, to increase, 1 in which the analogy to vegetable 
]ife is not far off, an analogy strengthened by the 
myth of that stock, which relates that the first of 
men were formed of the flour of maize. 2 

In many other instances religious legend carries 
out this idea. The mythical ancestor of the Caribs 
created his offspring by sowing the soil with stones 
or with the fruit of the Mauritius palm, which 

1 Vocabulario Quiche, s. v., ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1862. 

2 The Eskimo innuk, man, means also a possessor or owner ; 
the yelk of an egg ; and the pus of an abscess (Egede, Naehricli- 
ten von Grbnland, p. 106). From it is derived imiuwok, to live, 
life. Probably innuk also means the semen masculinum, and in 
its identification with pus, may not there be the solution of 
that strange riddle which in so many myths of the West Indies 
and Central America makes the first of men to be "the puru- 
lent one ?" (See ante, p. 135.) 



224 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 



sprouted forth into men and women, 1 while the Yuru- 
cares, much of whose mythology was perhaps bor- 
rowed from the Peruvians, clothed this crude tenet in 
a somewhat more poetic form, fabling that at the 
beginning the first of men were pegged, Ariel-like, in 
the knotty entrails of an enormous bole, until the god 
Tiri — a second Prospero — released them by cleaving 
it in twain.* 

As in oriental legends the origin of man from the 
earth was veiled under the story that he was the pro- 
geny of some mountain fecundated by the embrace 
of Mithras or Jupiter, so the Indians often pointed to. 
some height or some cavern, as the spot whence the 
first of men issued, adult and armed, from the womb 
of the All-mother Earth. The oldest name of the 
Alleghany Mountains is Paemotinck or Pemolnick, 
an Algonkin word, the meaning of which is said to 
be " the origin of the Indians." 3 

The Witchitas, who dwelt on the Eed Eiver among 
th.e mountains named after them, have a tradition 
that their progenitors issued from the rocks about 

« Miiller, Amer. UrreMg., pp. 109, 229. 

2 D'Orbigny, Frag, dhtne Toy. dans V Amer. Merid., p. 512. 
It is still a mooted point whence Shakspeare drew the plot of 
The Tempest. The coincidence mentioned in the text between 
some parts of it and South American mythology does not stand 
alone. Caliban, the savage and brutish native of the island, is 
undoubtedly the word Carib, often spelt Caribani, and Calibani 
in older writers ; and his " dam's god Setebos" was the supreme 
divinity of the Patagonians when first visited by Magellan. (Piga- 
fetta, Viaggio intorno al Globo, Germ. Trans. : Gotha, 1801, p. 
247.) 

3 Both Lederer and John Bartram assign it this meaning. 
Gallatin gives in the Powhatan dialect the word' for mountain as 
.po?nottinke, doubtless another form of the same. 



THE HOLY HILL OF THE APALACHIAN TRIBES. 225 

their homes, 1 and many other tribes the Tahkalis, 
Navajos, Coyoteras, and the Haitians, for instance, 
set up this claim to be autochthones. Most writers 
have interpreted this simply to mean that they knew 
nothing at all about their origin, or that they coined 
these fables merely to strengthen the title to the terri- 
tory they inhabited when they saw the whites eagerly 
snatching it away on every pretext. No doubt there 
is some truth in this, but if they be carefully sifted, 
there is sometimes a deep historical significance in 
these myths, which has hitherto escaped the observa- 
tion of students. An instance presents itself in our 
own country. 

All those tribes, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, 
Chicasaws, and Natchez, who, according to tradition, 
were in remote times banded into one common con- 
federacy under the headship of the last mentioned, 
unanimously located their earliest ancestry near an 
artificial eminence in the valley of the Big Black 
Eiver, in the Natchez country, whence they pretended 
to have emerged. Fortunately we have a description, 
though a brief one, of this interesting monument from 
the pen of an intelligent traveller. It is described as 
" an elevation of earth about half a mile square and 
fifteen or twenty feet high. From its northeast 
corner a wall of equal height extends for near half a 
mile to the high land." This was the Nunne Chaha 
or Nunne Hamgeh, the High Hill, or the Bending 
Hill, famous in Choctaw stories, and which Captain 
Gregg found they have not yet forgotten in their 
western home. The legend was that in its centre was 



1 Marcy, Exploration of the Bed River, p. 69. 

15 



226 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 



a cave, the house of the Master of Breath. Here he 
made the first men from the clay around him, and as 
at that time the waters covered the earth, he raised 
the wall to dry them on. When the soft mud had 
hardened into elastic flesh and firm bone, he banished 
the waters to their channels and beds, and gave the 
dry land to his creatures. 1 When in 1826 Albert 
Gallatin obtained from some Natchez chiefs a voca- 
bulary of their language, they gave to him as their 
word for hill precisely the same word that a century 
and a quarter before the French had found among 
them as their highest term for God; 2 reversing the 
example of the ancient Greeks who came in time to 
speak of Olympus, at first the proper name of a peak 
in Thessaly, as synonymous with heaven and Jove. 
A parallel to this southern legend occurs among 

1 Compare Bomans, Hist, of Florida, pp. 58, 71 ; Adair, Hist, 
of the North Am. Indians, p. 195 ; and Gregg, Commerce of the 
Prairies, ii. p. 235. The description of the mound is by Major 
Heart, in the Trans, of the Am. Philos. Soc, iii. p. 216. (1st 
series.) 

2 The French writers give for Great Spirit coyocopchill ; Galla- 
tin for hill, kweya Jcoopsel. The blending of these two ideas, at 
first sight so remote, is easily enough explained when we re- 
member that on " the hill of heaven" in all religions is placed the 
throne of the mightiest of existences. The Natchez word can be 
analyzed as follows : sel, sil, or chill, great ; cop, a termination 
very frequent in their language, apparently signifying existence ; 
kweya, coyo, for kue ya, from the Maya hue, god; the great 
living God. The Tarahumara language of Sonora offers an 
almost parallel instance. In it regui, is above, up, over, reguiki, 
heaven, reguiguiki, a hill or mountain (Buschmann, Spuren der 
Aztek. Sprache im nord. Mexico, p. 244). In the Quiche dialects 
tepeu is lord, ruler, and is often applied to the Supreme Being. 
With some probability Brasseur derives it from the Aztec tepetl, 
mountain (Hist, du Mexique, i. p. 106). 



THE SEVEN CAVERNS. 



227 



the Six Nations of the north. They with one con- 
sent, if we may credit the account of Cusic, looked to 
a mountain near the falls of the Oswego Eiver in 
the State of New York, as the locality where their 
forefathers first saw the light of day, and that they 
had some such legend the name Oneida, people of the 
Stone, would seem to testify. 

The cave of Pacari Tampu, the Lodgings of the 
Dawn, was five leagues distant from Cuzco, sur- 
rounded by a sacred grove and inclosed with temples 
of great antiquity. From its hallowed recesses the 
mythical civilizers of Peru, the first of men, emerged, 
and in it during the time of the flood, the remnants of 
the race escaped the fury of the waves. 1 Yiracocha 
himself is said to have dwelt there, though it hardly 
needed this evidence to render it certain that this con- 
secrated cavern is but a localization of the general 
myth of the dawn rising from the deep. It refers us 
for its prototype to the Aymara allegory of the morn- 
ing light flinging its beams like snow-white foam 
athwart the waves of Lake Titicaca. 

An ancient legend of the Aztecs derived their 
nation from a place called Chicomoztoc, the Seven 
Caverns, located north of Mexico. Antiquaries have 
indulged in all sorts of speculations as to what this 
means. Sahagun explains it as a valley so named ; 
Clavigero supposes it to have been a city ; Hamilton 
Smith, and after him Schoolcraft, construed caverns 
to be a figure of speech for the boats in which the 
early Americans paddled across from Asia (!) ; the 
Abbe Brasseur confounds it with Aztlan, and very 



1 Balboa, Hist, du Perou, p. 4. 



228 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN 



many have discovered in it a distinct reference to the 
fabulous "seven cities of Cibola" and the Casas 
Grandes, ruins of large buildings of unburnt brick in 
the valley of the Eiver Gila. From this story arose 
the supposed sevenfold division of the Nahuas, a 
division which never existed except in the imagina- 
tion of Europeans. When Torquemada adds that 
seven hero gods ruled in Chicomoztoc and were the 
progenitors of all its inhabitants, when one of them 
turns out to be Xelhua, the giant who with six others 
escaped the flood by ascending the mountain of Tlaloc 
in the terrestrial paradise and afterwards built the 
pyramid of Cholula, and when we remember that in 
one of the flood-myths seven persons were said to have 
escaped the waters, the whole narrative acquires a 
fabulous aspect that shuts it out from history, and 
brands it as one of those fictions of the origin of man 
from the earth so common to the race. Fictions yet 
truths ; for caverns and hollow trees were in fact the 
houses and temples of our first parents, and from them 
they went forth to conquer and adorn the world; and 
from the inorganic constituents of the soil acted on 
by Light, touched by Divine Force, vivified by the 
Spirit, did in reality the first of men proceed. 

This cavern, which thus dimly lingered in the 
memories of nations, occasionally expanded to a 
nether world, imagined to underlie this of ours, and 
still inhabited by beings of our kind, who have never 
been lucky enough to discover its exit. The Man- 
dans and Minnetarees on the Missouri Eiver supposed 
this exit was near a certain hill in their territory, 
and as it had been, as it were, the womb of the 
earth, the same power was attributed to it that in 



THE MYTH OF THE UNDER- WORLD. 229 

ancient times endowed certain shrines with such 
charms; and thither the barren wives of their nation 
made frequent pilgrimages when they would become 
mothers. 1 The Mandans added the somewhat puerile 
fable that the means of ascent had been a grapevine, 
by which many ascended and descended, until one 
day an immoderately fat old lady, anxious to get a 
look at the upper earth, broke it with her weight, 
and prevented any further communication. 

Such tales of an under-world are very frequent 
among the Indians, and are a very natural outgrowth 
of the literal belief that the race is earth-born. 

Man is indeed like the grass that springs up and 
soon withers away; but he is also more than this. 
The quintessence of dust, he is a son of the gods as 
well as a son of the soil. He is the direct product of 
the great creative power; therefore all the Atha- 
pascan tribes west of the Kocky Mountains — the 
Kenai, the Kolushes, and the Atnai — claim descent 
from a raven — from that same mighty cloud-bird, 
who in the beginning of things seized the elements 
and brought the world from the abyss of the primi- 
tive ocean. Those of the same stock situate more 
eastwardly, the Dogribs, the Chepewyans, the Hare 
Indians, and also the west coast Eskimos, and the 
natives of the Aleutian Isles, all believe that they 
have sprung from a dog. 2 The latter animal, we have 
already seen, both in the old and new world was the 
fixed symbol of the water goddess. Therefore in 

1 Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, i. p. 274; Cat- 
lin's Letters, i. p. 178. 

2 Richardson, Arctic Expedition, pp. 239, 247; Klemm, GuU 
turgeschichte der Menscliheit, ii. p. 316. 



230 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN 



these myths, which are found over so many thousand 
square leagues, we cannot be in error in perceiving a 
reflex of their cosmogonical traditions already dis- 
cussed, in which from the winds and the waters, 
represented here under their emblems of the bird 
and the dog, all animate life proceeded. 

Without this symbolic coloring, a tribe to the south 
of them, a band of the Minnetarees, had the crude 
tradition that their first progenitor emerged from the 
waters, bearing in his hand an ear of maize, 1 very 
much as Viracocha and his companions rose from the 
sacred waves of Lake Titicaca, or as the Moxos 
imagined that they were descended from the lakes 
and rivers on whose banks their villages were 
situated. 

These myths, and many others, hint of general 
conceptions of life and the world, wide-spread theo- 
ries of ancient date, such as we are not accustomed 
to expect among savage nations, such as may very 
excusably excite a doubt as to their native origin, 
but a doubt infallibly dispelled by a careful compari- 
son of the best authorities. Is it that hitherto, in 
the pride of intellectual culture, we have never done 
j ustice to the thinking faculty of those whom we call 
barbarians ? Or shall we accept the only other alter- 
native, that these are the unappreciated heirlooms 
bequeathed a rude race by a period of higher civiliza- 
tion, long since extinguished by constant wars and 
ceaseless fear ? We are not yet ready to answer 
these questions. With almost unanimous consent 
the latter has been accepted as the true solution, but 
rather from the preconceived theory of a state of 

1 Long, Exped. to the Rocky Mountains, i. p. 326. 



THE CHILDREN OF THE WOLF. 



231 



primitive civilization from which man fell, than from 
ascertained facts. 

It would, perhaps, be pushing symbolism too far 
to explain as an emblem of the primitive waters the 
coyote, which, according to the Root-Diggers of Cali- 
fornia, brought their ancestors into the world ; or the 
wolf, which the Lenni Lenape pretended released 
mankind from the dark bowels of the earth by 
scratching away the soil. They should rather be 
interpreted by the curious custom of the Toukaways, 
a wild people in Texas, of predatory and unruly dis- 
position. They celebrate their origin by a grand 
annual dance. One of them, naked as he was born, 
is buried in the earth. The others, clothed in wolf- 
skins, walk over him, snuff around him, howl in 
lupine style, and finally dig him up with their nails. 
The leading wolf then solemnly places a bow and 
arrow in his hands, and to his inquiry as to what he 
must do for a living, paternally advises him "to do 
as the wolves do — rob, kill, and murder, rove from 
place to place, and never cultivate the soil." 1 Most 
wise and fatherly counsel ! But what is there new 
under the sun ? Three thousand years ago the Hir- 
pini, or "Wolves, an ancient Sabine tribe, were wont 
to collect on Mount Soracte, and there go through 
certain rites in memory of an oracle which predicted 
their extinction when they ceased to gain their living 
as wolves by violence and plunder. Therefore they 
dressed in wolf-skins, ran with barks and howls over 
burning coals, and gnawed wolfishly whatever they 
could seize. 2 

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 683. 

2 Scliwarz, Ursprung der Mythologie, p. 121. 



232 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN 



Though hasty writers have often said that the 
Indian tribes claim literal descent from different wild 
beasts, probably in all other instances, as in these, 
this will prove, on examination, to be an error rest- 
ing on a misapprehension arising from the habit of 
the natives of adopting as their totem or clan-mark 
the figure and name of some animal, or else, in an 
ignorance of the animate symbols employed with 
such marked preference by the red race to express 
abstract ideas. In some cases, doubtless, the natives 
themselves came, in time, to confound the symbol 
with the idea, by that familiar process of personifica- 
tion and consequent debasement exemplified in the 
history of every religion; but I do not believe that 
a single example could be found where an Indian 
tribe had a tradition whose real purport was that 
man came by natural process of descent from an 
ancestor, a brute. 

The reflecting mind will not be offended at the 
contradictions in these different myths, for a myth is, 
in one sense, a theory of natural phenomena ex- 
pressed in the form of a narrative. Often several 
explanations seem equally satisfactory for the same 
fact, and the mind hesitates to choose, and rather 
accepts them all than rejects any. Then, again, an 
expression current as a metaphor by-and-by crystal- 
lizes into a dogma, and becomes the nucleus of a new 
mythological growth. These are familiar processes 
to one versed in such studies, and involve no logical 
contradiction, because they are never required to be 
reconciled. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 

Universality of the belief in a soul and a future state shown by the abo- 
riginal tongues, by expressed opinions, and by sepulchral rites. — 
The future world never a place of rewards and punishments. — The 
house of the Sun the heaven of the red man. — The terrestrial paradise 
and the under-world. — Cupay. — Xibalba. — Mictlan. — Metempsychosis ? 
— Belief in a resurrection of the dead almost universal. 

rjIHE missionary Charlevoix wrote several excellent 
works on America toward the beginning of the 
last century, and he is often quoted by later authors ; 
but probably no one of his sayings has been thus 
honored more frequently than this : " The belief the 
best established among our Americans is that of the 
immortality of the soul." 1 The tremendous stake 
that every one of us has on the truth of this dogma 
makes it quite a satisfaction to be persuaded that no 
man is willing to live wholly without it. Certainly 
exceptions are very rare, and most of those which 
materialistic philosophers have taken such pains to 
collect, rest on misunderstandings or superficial 
observation. 

In the new world I know of only one well au- 
thenticated instance where all notion of a future state 
appears to have been entirely wanting, and this in 
quite a small clan, the Lower Pend d'Oreilles, of 



1 Journal Historique, p. 351 : Paris, 1740. 



234 



THE SO UL AND ITS DESTINY. 



Oregon. This people had no burial ceremonies, no 
notion of a life hereafter, no word for soul, spiritual 
existence, or vital principle. They thought that 
when they died, that was the last of them. The 
Catholic missionaries who undertook the unpromising 
task of converting them to Christianity, were at first 
obliged to depend upon the imperfect translations of 
half-breed interpreters. These " made the idea of 
soul intelligible to their hearers by telling them they 
had a gut which never rotted, and that this was their 
living principle !" Yet even they were not destitute 
of religious notions. No tribe was more addicted to 
the observance of charms, omens, dreams, and 
guardian spirits, and they believed that illness and 
bad luck generally were the effects of the anger of a 
fabulous old woman. 1 The aborigines of the Cali- 
fornian peninsula were as near beasts as men ever 
become. The missionaries likened them to "herds 
of swine, who neither worshipped the true and only 
God, nor adored false deities." Yet they must have 
had some vague notion of an after.world, for the 
writer who paints the darkest picture of their condi- 
tion remarks, " I saw them frequently putting shoes 
on the feet of the dead, which seems to indicate that 
they entertain the idea of a journey after death." 2 

Proof of Charlevoix's opinion may be derived 
from three independent sources. The aboriginal lan- 

1 Bep. of the Commissioner of Ind. Affairs, 1854, pp. 211, 
212. The old woman is once more a personification of the water 
and the moon. 

2 Bsegert, Acc. of the Aborig. Tribes of the Calif ornian Penin- 
sula, translated by Chas. Rau, in Ann. Rep. Smithson. Inst., 
1866, p. 387. 



THE SOUL AND THE SHADOW. 235 



guages may be examined for terms corresponding to 
the word soul, the opinions of the Indians them- 
selves may be quoted, and the significance of sepul- 
chral rites as indicative of a belief in life after death 
may be determined. 

The most satisfactory is the first of these. We call 
the soul a ghost or spirit, and often a shade. In 
these words, the breath and the shadow are the sensu- 
ous perceptions transferred to represent the imma- 
terial object of our thought. Why the former was 
chosen, I have already explained ; and for the latter, 
that it is man's intangible image, his constant com- 
panion, and is of a nature akin to darkness, earth, 
and night, are sufficiently obvious reasons. 

These same tropes recur in American languages in 
the same connection. The New England tribes called 
the soul chemung, the shadow, and in Quiche natub, 
in Eskimo tarnak, express both these ideas. In 
Mohawk atonritz, the soul, is from atonrion, to breathe, 
and other examples to the same purpose have 
already been given. 1 

Of course no one need demand that a strict imma- 
teriality be attached to these words. Such a color- 
less negative abstraction never existed for them, 
neither does it for us, though we delude ourselves 

1 Of the Mcaraguans Oviedo says : " Ce n'est pas leur coeur 
qui va en haut, niais ce qui les faisait vivre ; c'est-a-dire, le souffle 
qui leur sort par la bouche, et que Ton nomme Julio" (Hist, du 
Nicaragua, p. 36). The word should be yulia, kindred with yoli, 
to live. (Buschniann, Tiber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen, p. 765.) 
In the Aztec and cognate languages we have already seen that 
ehecatl means both wind, soul, and shadow (Buschmann, Spuren 
der Aztek. Spr. in Nbrdlichen Mexico, p. 74). 



236 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



into believing that it does. The soul was to them 
the invisible man, material as ever, but lost to the 
appreciation of the senses. 

Nor let any one be astonished if its unity was 
doubted, and several supposed to reside in one body. 
This is nothing more than a somewhat gross form of 
a doctrine upheld by most creeds and most philoso- 
phies. It seems the readiest solution of certain 
psychological enigmas, and may, for aught we know, 
be an instinct of fact. The Eabbis taught a threefold 
division — nepliesli, the animal, ruah, the human, and 
neshamahj the divine soul, which corresponds to that 
of Plato into thumos, epithumia, and nous. And even 
Saint Paul seems to have recognized such inherent 
plurality when he distinguishes between the bodily 
soul, the intellectual soul, and the spiritual gift, in 
his Epistle to the Romans. No such refinements of 
course as these are to be expected among the red 
men ; but it may be looked upon either as the rudi- 
ments of these teachings, or as a gradual debasement 
of them to gross and material expression, that an old 
and wide-spread notion was found among both Iro- 
quois and Algonkins, that man has two souls, one of 
a vegetative character, which gives bodily life, and 
remains with the corpse after death, until it is 
called to enter another body; another of more ethe- 
real texture, which in life can depart from the body 
in sleep or trance, and wander over the world, and at 
death goes directly to the land of Spirits. 1 

The Sioux extended it to Plato's number, and are 

1 Bel. de la Nouv. France, An 1636, p. 104; " Keating' s Nar- 
rative," i. pp. 232, 410. 



THE PLURALITY OF SOULS. 



237 



said to have looked forward to one going to a cold 
place, another to a warm and comfortable country, 
while the third was to watch the body. Certainly a 
most impartial distribution of rewards and punish- 
ments. 1 Some other Dakota tribes shared their views 
on this point, bat more commonly, doubtless owing 
to the sacredness of the number, imagined four souls, 
with separate destinies, one to wander about the 
world, one to watch the body, the third to hover 
around the village, and- the highest to go to the spirit 
land. 2 Even this number is multiplied by certain 
Oregon tribes, who imagine one in every member ; 
and by the Caribs of Martinique, who, wherever 
they could detect a pulsation, located a spirit, all 
subordinate, however, to a supreme one throned in 
the heart, which alone would be transported to the 
skies at death. 3 For the heart that so constantly 
sympathizes with our emotions and actions, is, in 
most languages and most nations, regarded as the 
seat of life ; and when the priests of bloody religions 
tore out the heart of the victim and offered it to the 
idol, it was an emblem of the life that was thus torn 
from the field of this world and consecrated to the 
rulers of the next. 

Various motives impel the living to treat with re- 
spect the body from which life has departed. Lowest 
of them is a superstitious dread of death and the 
dead. The stoicism of the Indian, especially the 
northern tribes, in the face of death, has often been 
the topic of poets, and has often been interpreted to 



1 French, Hist. Colls, of Louisiana, iii. p. 26. 

2 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 129. 

3 Toy. a la Louisiane fait en 1720, p. 155 : 'Paris, 1768. 



238 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



be a fearlessness of that event. This is by no means 
true. Savages have an awful horror of death ; it is 
to them the worst of ills ; and for this very reason 
was it that they thought to meet it without flinching 
was the highest proof of courage. Everything con- 
nected with the deceased was, in many tribes, shunned 
with superstitious terror. His name was not men- 
tioned, his property left untouched, all reference to 
him was sedulously avoided. A Tupi tribe used to 
hurry the body at once to the nearest water, and toss 
it in ; the Akanzas left it in the lodge and burned 
over it the dwelling and contents ; and the Algonkins 
carried it forth by a hole cut opposite the door, and 
beat the walls with sticks to fright away the linger- 
ing ghost. Burying places were always avoided, and 
every means taken to prevent the departed spirits 
exercising a malicious influence on those remaining 
behind. 

These craven fears do but reveal the natural re- 
pugnance of the animal to a cessation of existence, 
and arise from the instinct of self-preservation essen- 
tial to organic life. Other rites, undertaken avowedly 
for the behoof of the soul, prove and illustrate a 
simple but unshaken faith in its continued existence 
after the decay of the body. 

None of these is more common or more natural 
than that which attributes to the emancipated spirit 
the same wants that it felt while on earth, and 
with loving foresight provides for their satisfaction. 
Clothing and utensils of war and the chase were, in 
ancient times, uniformly placed by the body, under 
the impression that they would be of service to the 
departed in his new home. Some few tribes in the 



THE RITES AT THE TOMB. 



239 



far west still retain the custom, but most were soon 
ridiculed into its neglect, or were forced to omit it 
by the violation of tombs practised by depraved 
whites in hope of gain. To these harmless offerings 
the northern tribes often added a dog slain on the 
grave ; and doubtless the skeletons of these animals 
in so many tombs in Mexico and Peru point to simi- 
lar customs there. It had no deeper meaning than 
to give a companion to the spirit in its long and lone- 
some journey to the far off land of shades. The pe- 
culiar appropriateness of the dog arose not only from 
the guardianship it exerts during life, but further 
from the symbolic signification it so often had as 
representative of the goddess of night and the grave. 

Where a despotic form of government reduced the 
subject almost to the level of a slave and elevated 
the ruler almost to that of a superior being, not 
animals only, but men, women, and children were 
frequently immolated at the tomb of the cacique. 
The territory embraced in our own country was not 
without examples of this horrid custom. On the 
lower Mississippi, the Natchez Indians brought it 
with them from Central America in all its ghastliness. 
When a sun or chief died, one or several of his wives 
and his highest officers were knocked on the head and 
buried with him, and at such times the barbarous 
privilege was allowed to any of the lowest caste to at 
once gain admittance to the highest by the deliberate 
murder of their own children on the funeral pyre — 
a privilege which respectable writers tell us human 
beings were found base enough to take advantage of. 1 

1 Dupratz, Hist, of Louisiana, ii. p. 219 ; Dmnont, Menu. 
Hist, sur la Louisiane, i. chap. 26. 



240 



THE SOUL AXD ITS DESTINY. 



Oviedo relates that in the province of Guataro, in 
Guatemala, an actual rivalry prevailed among the 
people to be slain at the death of their cacique, for 
they had been taught that only such as vent with 
him would ever find their way to the paradise of the 
departed. 1 Theirs was therefore somewhat of a selfish 
motive, and only in certain parts of Peru, where poly- 
gamy prevailed, and the rule was that only one wife 
was to be sacrificed, does the deportment of husbands 
seem to have been so creditable that their widows 
actually disputed one with another for the pleasure 
of being buried alive with the dead body, and bear- 
ing their spouse company to the other world. 2 Wives 
who have found few parallels since the famous matron 
of Ephesus ! 

The fire built nightly on the grave was to light the 
spirit on his journey. By a coincidence to be ex- 
plained by the universal sacredness of the number, 
both Algonkins and Mexicans maintained it for four 
nights consecutively. The former related the tradi- 
tion that one of their ancestors returned from the 
spirit land and informed their nation that the journey 
thither consumed just four days, and that collecting 
fuel every night added much to the toil and fatigue 
the soul encountered, all of which could be spared it 
by the relatives kindling nightly a fire on the grave. 
Or as Longfellow has told it :— ■ 

u Four days is the spirit's journey 
To the land of ghosts and shadows, 
Four its lonely night encampments. 

1 Bel. de la Prov. de Cueba, p. 140. 

2 Coreal, Voiages aux hides Occide?itales, ii. p. 94: Amsterdam, 
1722. 



THE SOUL UPON ITS JOURNEY. 



241 



Therefore when the dead are buried, 
Let a fire as night approaches 
Four times on the grave be kindled, 
That the soul upon its journey- 
May not grope about in darkness." 

The same length of time, say the Navajos, does the 
departed soul wander over a gloomy marsh ere it can 
discover the ladder leading to the world below, where 
are the homes of the setting and the rising sun, a 
land of luxuriant plenty, stocked with game and 
covered with corn. To that land, say they, sink all 
lost seeds and germs which fall on the earth and do 
not sprout. There below they take root, bud, and 
ripen their fruit. 1 

After four days, once more, in the superstitions of 
the Greenland Eskimos, does the soul, for that term 
after death confined in the body, at last break from 
its prison-house and either rise in the sky to dance 
in the aurora borealis or descend into the pleasant 
land beneath the earth, according to the manner of 
death. 2 

That there are logical contradictions in this belief 
and these ceremonies, that the fire is always in the 
same spot, that the weapons and utensils are not 
carried away by the departed, and that the food placed 
for his sustenance remains untouched, is very true. 
But those who would therefore argue that they were 
not intended for the benefit of the soul, and seek 
some more recondite meaning in them as "uncon- 
scious emblems of struggling faith or expressions of 

1 Senate Eep. on the Ind. Tribes, p. 358 : "Wash. 1867. 

2 Egede, Nachrichten von Gronland, p. 145. 
16 



212 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



inward emotions," 1 are led astray by the very sim- 
plicity of their real intention. Where is the faith, 
where the science, that does not involve logical con- 
tradictions just as gross as these ? They are tolerable 
to ns merely because we are used to them. What 
value has the evidence of the senses anywhere against 
a religious faith ? None whatever. A stumbling 
block though this be to the materialist, it is the 
universal truth, and as such it is well to accept it as 
an experimental fact. 

The preconceived opinions that saw in the meteor- 
ological myths of the Indian a conflict between the 
Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, have with like 
unconscious error falsified his doctrine of a future 
life, and almost without an exception drawn it more 
or less in the likeness of the Christian heaven, hell, 
and purgatory. Very faint traces of any such belief 
except where derived from the missionaries are visible 
in the New World. Nowhere was any well-defined 
doctrine that moral turpitude was judged and punished 
in the next world. No contrast is discoverable be- 
tween a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the 
worst but a negative castigation awaited the liar, the 
coward, or the niggard. The typical belief of the 
tribes of the United States was well expressed in the 
reply of Esau Hajo, great medal chief and speaker 
for the Creek nation in the National Council, to the 
question, Do the' red people believe in a future state 
of rewards and punishments? " We have an opinion 
that those who have behaved well are taken under 
the care of Esaugetuh Emissee, and assisted ; and that 

1 Alger, Hist, of the Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 76. 



THE HE A VEN OF THE RED MAN. 243 

those who have behaved ill are left to shift for them- 
selves; and that there is no other punishment." 1 

Neither the delights of a heaven on the one hand, 
nor the terrors of a hell on the other, were ever held 
out by priests or sages as an incentive to well-cloing, 
or a warning to the evil-disposed. Different fates, 
indeed, awaited the departed souls, but these rarely, 
if ever, were decided by their conduct while, in the 
flesh, but by the manner of gleath, the punctuality 
with which certain sepulchral rites were fulfilled by 
relatives, or other similar arbitrary circumstance 
beyond the power of the individual to control. This 
view, which T am well aware is directly at variance 
with that of all previous writers, may be shown to be 
that natural to the uncultivated intellect everywhere, 
and the real interpretation of the creeds of America. 
Whether these arbitrary circumstances were not con- 
strued to signify the decision of the Divine Mind on 
the life of the man, is a deeper question, which there 
is no means at hand to solve. 

Those who have complained of the hopeless confu- 
sion of American religions have but proven the 
insufficiency of their own means of analyzing them. 
The uniformity which they display in so many points 
is nowhere more fully illustrated than in the unanimi- 
ty with which they all point to the sun as the land of 
the happy souls, the realm of the blessed, the scene 
of the joyous hunting-grounds of the hereafter. Its 
perennial glory, its comfortable warmth, its daily 
analogy to the life of man, marked its abode as the 
pleasantest spot in the universe. It matters not whe- 



1 Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, p. 80. 



244 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



ther the eastern Algonkins pointed to the south, 
others of their nation, with the Iroquois and Creeks, 
to the west, or many tribes to the east, as the direc- 
tion taken by the spirit ; all these myths but mean 
that its bourn is the home of the sun, which is per- 
haps in the Orient whence he comes forth, in the Oc- 
cident where he makes his bed, or in the South 
whither he retires in the chilling winter. Where the 
sun lives, they informed the earliest foreign visitors, 
were the villages of the deceased, and the milky way 
which nightly spans the arch of heaven, was, in their 
opinion, the road that led thither, and was called the 
path of the souls (le chemin des ames)} To hueyu hu, 
the mansion of the sun, said the Caribs, the soul 
passes when death overtakes the body. 2 Our know- 
ledge is scanty of the doctrines taught by the Incas 
concerning the soul, but this much we do know, 
that they looked to the sun, their recognized lord 
and protector, as he who would care for them at 
death, and admit them to his palaces. There — not, 
indeed, exquisite joys — but a life of unruffled pla- 
cidity, void of labor, vacant of strong emotions, a 
sort of material Nirvana, awaited them. 3 For these 
reasons, they, with most other American nations, 
interred the corpse lying east and west, and not as 
the traveller Meyen has suggested, 4 from the reminis- 
cences of some ancient migration. Beyond the Cor- 
dilleras, quite to the coast of Brazil, the innumerable 
hordes who wandered through the sombre tropical 

1 Bel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, pp. 17, 18. 

2 Miiller, Amer. Urreligionen, p. 229. 

3 La Vega, Hist, des Incas., lib. ii. cap. 7. 

4 Ueber die UreinwoJnier von Peru, p. 41. 



THE FATE OF THE SOUL. 



245 



forests of that immense territory, also pointed to the 
west, to the region beyond the mountains, as the 
land where the souls of their ancestors lived in un- 
disturbed serenity ; or, in the more brilliant imagina- 
tions of the later generations, in a state of perennial 
inebriety, surrounded by infinite casks of rum, and 
with no white man to dole it out to them. 1 The 
natives of the extreme south, of the Pampas and 
Patagonia, suppose the stars are the souls of the de- 
parted. At night they wander about the sky, but 
the moment the sun rises they hasten to the cheerful 
light, and are seen no more until it disappears in the 
west. So the Eskimo of the distant north, in the 
long winter nights when the aurora bridges the sky • 
with its changing hues and arrowy shafts of light, 
believes he sees the spirits of his ancestors clothed in 
celestial raiment, disporting themselves in the absence 
of the sun, and calls the phenomenon the dance of the 
dead. 

The home of the sun was the heaven of the red 
man ; but to this joyous abode not every one without 
distinction, no miscellaneous crowd, could gain ad- 
mittance. The conditions were as various as the 
national temperaments. As the fierce gods of the 
Northmen would admit no soul to the banquets of 
Walhalla but such as had met the " spear-death" in the 
bloody play of war, and shut out pitilessly all those 
who feebly breathed their last in the "straw death" 
on the couch of sickness, so the warlike Aztec race 
in Nicaragua held that the shades of those who died 

1 Coreal, Toy. aux Indes Occident., i. p. 224; Muller, Amer. 
Urrelig., p. 289. 



246 



THE SO TIL AND ITS DESTINY. 



in their beds went downward and to naught ; but of 
those who fell in battle for their country to the east, 
"to the place whence comes the sun." 1 In ancient 
Mexico not only the warriors who were thus sacri- 
ficed on the altar of their country, but with a delicate 
and poetical sense of justice that speaks well for the 
refinement of the race, also those women who perished 
in child-birth, were admitted to the home of the sun. 
For are not they also heroines in the battle of life? 
Are they not also its victims? And do they not lay 
down their lives for country and kindred ? Every 
morning, it was imagined, the heroes came forth in 
battle array, and with shout and song and the ring of 
weapons, accompanied the sun to the zenith, where 
at every noon the souls of the mothers, the Cihuapi- 
pilti, received him with dances, music, and flowers, 
and bore him company to his western couch. 2 Ex- 
cept these, none — without, it may be, the victims 
sacrificed to the gods, and this is doubtful — were 
deemed worthy of the highest heaven. 

A mild and un warlike tribe -of Guatemala, on the 
other hand, were persuaded that to die by any other 
than a natural death was to forfeit all hope of life 
hereafter, and therefore left the bodies of the slain to 
the beasts and vultures. 

The Mexicans had another place of happiness for 
departed souls, not promising perpetual life as the 
home of the sun, but unalloyed pleasure for a certain 
term of years. This was Tlalocan, the realm of the 
god of rains and waters, the terrestrial paradise, 

1 Oviedo, Hist, du Nicaragua, p. 22. 

2 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 27. 



THE RIVER OF DEATH. 



247 



whence flowed all the rivers of the earth, and all the 
nourishment of the race. The diseases of which per- 
sons died marked this destination. Such as were 
drowned, or struck by lightning, or succumbed to 
humoral complaints, as dropsies and leprosy, were 
by these tokens known to be chosen as the subjects 
of Tlaloc. To such, said the natives, "death is the 
commencement of another life, it is as waking from a 
dream, and the soul is no more human but divine 
(teot)." Therefore they addressed their dying in terms 
like these: " Sir, or lady, awake, awake ; already does 
the dawn appear ; even now is the light approaching ; 
already do the birds of yellow plumage begin their 
songs to greet thee; already are the gayly-tinted 
butterflies flitting around thee." 1 

Before proceeding to the more gloomy portion of 
the subject, to the destiny of those souls who were 
not chosen for the better part, I must advert to a 
curious coincidence in the religious reveries of many 
nations which finds its explanation in the belief that 
the house of the sun is the home of the blessed, and 
proves that this was the first conception of most 
natural religions. It is seen in the events and obsta- 
cles of the journey to the happy land. We everywhere 
hear of a water which the soul must cross, and an 
opponent, either a clog or an evil spirit, which it has 
to contend with. We are all familiar with the do a* 

o 

Cerberus (called by Homer simply "the dog"), which 
disputed the passage of the river Styx over which 
the souls must cross; and with the custom of the 
vikings, to be buried in a boat so that they might 



1 Saliagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. x. cap. 29. 



248 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



cross the waters of Ginunga-gap to the inviting 
strands of Godheim. Relics of this belief are found 
in the Koran which describes the bridge el Sirat, 
thin as a hair and sharp as a scimetar, stretched in a 
single span from heaven to earth; in the Persian 
legend, where the rainbow arch Chinevad is flung 
across the gloomy depths between this world and the 
home of the happy ; and even in the current Chris- 
tian allegory which represents the waters of the 
mythical Jordan rolling between us and the Celestial 
City. 

How strange at first sight does it seem that the 
Hurons and Iroquois should have told the earliest 
missionaries that after death the soul must cross a 
deep and swift river on a bridge formed by a single 
slender tree most lightly supported, where it had to 
defend itself against the attacks of a dog? 1 If only 
they had expressed this belief, it might have passed 
for a coincidence merely. But the Athapascas (Che- 
pewyans) also told of a great water, which the soul 
must cross in a stone canoe; the Algonkins and 
Dakotas, of a stream bridged by an enormous snake, 
or a narrow and precipitous rock, and the Arauca- 
nians of Chili of a sea in the west, in crossing which 
the soul was required to pay toll to a malicious old 
woman. Were it unluckily impecunious, she de- 
prived it of an eye. 2 With the Aztecs this water was 
called Chicunoapa, the Nine Rivers. It was guarded 
by a dog and a green dragon, to conciliate which the 
dead were furnished with slips of paper by way of toll. 

1 Bel. de la Nouv. France, 1636, p. 105. 

2 Molina, Hist, of Chili, ii. p. 81, and others in Waitz, 
Anthropologie, iii. p. 197. 



THE RIVER OF DEATH. 



249 



The Greenland Eskimos thought that the waters roared 
through an unfathomable abyss over which there was 
no other bridge than a wheel slippery with ice, forever 
revolving with fearful rapidity, or a path narrow as 
a cord with nothing to hold on by. On the other 
side sits a horrid old woman gnashing her teeth and 
tearing her hair with rage. As each soul approaches 
she burns a feather under its nose; if it faints she 
seizes it for her prisoner, but if the soul's guardian 
spirit can overcome her, it passes through in safety. 1 

The similarity to the passage of the soul across the 
Styx, and the toll of the obolus to Charon is in the 
Aztec legend still more striking, when we remember 
that the Styx was the ninth head of Oceanus (omitting 
the Cocytus, often a branch of the Styx). The Nine 
Eivers probably refer to the nine Lords of the Night, 
ancient Aztec deities guarding the nocturnal hours, 
and introduced into their calendar. • The Tupis and 
Caribs, the Mayas and Creeks, entertained very 
similar expectations. 

We are to seek the explanation of these wide- 
spread theories of the soul's journey in the equally 
prevalent tenet that the sun is its destiDation, and 
that that luminary has his abode beyond the ocean 
stream, which in all primitive geographies rolls its 
waves around the habitable land. This ocean stream 
is the water which all have to attempt to pass, and 
woe to him whom the spirit of the waters, represented 
either as the old woman, the dragon, or the dog of 
Hecate, seizes and overcomes. In the lush fancy of 

1 NachricMen von Gronland aus dem Tagebuche vom Biscliof 
Paul Egede, p. 104 : Kopenliagen, 1790. 



250 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



the Orient, the spirit of the waters becomes the spirit 
of evil, the ocean stream the abyss of hell, and those 
who fail in the passage the damned, who are fore- 
doomed to evil deeds and endless torture. 

No such ethical bearing as this was ever assigned 
the myth by the red race before they were taught by 
Europeans. Father Brebeuf could only find that the 
souls of suicides and those killed in war were sup- 
posed to live apart from the others; "but as to the 
souls of scoundrels," he adds, " so far from being shut 
out, they are the welcome guests, though for that mat- 
ter if it were not so, their paradise would be a total 
desert, as Huron and scoundrel {Huron et larron) are 
one and the same." 1 When the Minnetarees told Major 
Long and the Mannicicas of the La Plata the Jesuits, 2 
that the souls of the bad fell into the waters and were 
swept away, these are, beyond doubt, attributable 
either to a false interpretation, or to Christian instruc- 
tion. No such distinction is probable among savages. 
The Brazilian natives divided the dead into classes, 
supposing that the drowned, those killed by violence, 
and those yielding to disease, lived in separate re- 
gions; but no ethical reason whatever seems to have 
been connected with this. 3 If the conception of a 
place of moral retribution was known at all to the 
race, it should be found easily recognizable in Mexico, 
Yucatan, or Peru. But the so-called " hells " of their 
religions have no such significance, and the spirits of 
evil, who were identified by early writers with Satan, 
no more deserve the name than does the Greek Pluto. 

1 Bel. de la Nouv. France, .1636, p. 105. 

2 Long's Expedition, i. p. 280 ; Waitz, Anthropologic, iii. p. 531. 

3 Mtiller, Amer. TIrreligionen, p. 287. 



gU PAY AND X IB ALB A. 



251 



Qupay or Supay, the Shadow, in Peru was sup- 
posed to rule the land of shades in the centre of the 
earth. To him went all souls not destined to be the 
companions of the Sun. This is all we know of his 
attributes; and the assertion of Garcilasso de laYega, 
that he was the analogue of the Christian Devil, and 
that his name was never pronounced without spitting 
and muttering a curse on his head, may be invali- 
dated by the testimony of an earlier and better autho- 
rity on the religion of Peru, who calls him the god 
of rains, and adds that the famous Inca, Huayna 
Capac, was his high priest. 1 

"The devil," says Cogolludo of the Mayas, "is 
called by them Xibilha, which means he who disap- 
pears or vanishes." 2 In the legends of the Quiches, 
the name Xibalba is given as that of the under- world 
ruled by the grim lords One Death and Seven 
Deaths. The derivation of the name is from a root 
meaning to fear, from which comes the term in Maya 
dialects for a ghost or phantom. 3 Under the influ- 
ence of a century of Christian catechizing, the Quiche 
legends portray this really as a place of torment, and 
its rulers as malignant and powerful ; but as I have 

1 Compare Garcilasso cle la Yega, Hist, des Lncas., liv. ii. cliap. 
h\, with Lett, sur les Superstitions du Perou, p. 104. Qupay is 
undoubtedly a personal form from £upan, a shadow. (See Hol- 
guin, Vocab. de la Lengua Quichua, p. 80: Cuzco, 1608.) 

2 "El que desparece 6 desvanece," Hist, de YucatJian, lib. iv. 
cap. 7. 

3 Ximenes, Vocab. Quiche, p. 224. The attempt of the Abbe 
Brasseur to make of Xibalba an ancient kingdom of renown with 
Palenque as its capital, is so utterly unsupported and wildly 
hypothetical, as to justify the humorous flings which have so 
often been cast at antiquaries. 



252 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 

before pointed out, they do so, protesting that such 
was not the ancient belief, and they let fall no word 
that shows that it was regarded as the destination of 
the morally bad. The original meaning of the name 
given by Cogolludo points unmistakably to the sim- 
ple fact of disappearance from among men, and cor- 
responds in harmlessness to the true sense of those 
words of fear, Scheol, Hades, Hell, all signifying hid- 
den from sight, and only endowed with more grim 
associations by the imaginations of later generations. 1 

Mictlanteuctli, Lord of Mictlan, from a word mean- 
ing to die, was the Mexican Pluto. Like Qupay, 
he dwelt in the subterranean regions, and his palace 
was named Tlalxicco, the navel of the earth. Yet he 
was also located in the far north, and that point of 
the compass and the north wind were named after him. 
Those who descended to him were oppressed by the 
darkness of his abode, but were subjected to no other 
trials; nor were they sent thither as a punishment, 
but merely from having died of diseases unfitting 
them for Tlalocan. Mictlanteuctli was said to be the 
most powerful of the gods. For who is stronger than 
Death? And who dare defy the Grave ? As the skald 
lets Odin say to Bragi: " Our lot is uncertain; even 
on the hosts of the gods gazes the gray Fenris wolf." 2 

These various abodes to which the incorporeal man 
took flight were not always his everlasting home. 
It will be remembered that where a plurality of souls 

1 Scheol is from a Hebrew word, signifying to dig, to hide in 
the earth. Hades signifies the unseen world. Hell Jacob Grimm 
derives from Mian, to conceal in the earth, and it is cognate with 
Jiole and hollow. 

2 Pennock, Beligion of the Northmen, p. 148. 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 



253 



was believed, one of these, soon after death, entered 
another body to recommence life on earth. Acting 
under this persuasion, the Algonkin women who de- 
sired to become mothers, flocked to the couch of those 
about to die, in hope that the vital principle, as it 
passed from the body, would enter theirs, and ferti- 
lize their sterile wombs ; and when, among the Semi- 
noles of Florida, a mother died in childbirth, the 
infant was held over her face to receive her parting 
spirit, and thus acquire strength and knowledge for 
its future use. 1 So among the Tahkalis, the priest 
is accustomed to lay his hand on the head of the 
nearest relative of the deceased, and to blow into him 
the soul of the departed, which is supposed to come 
to life in his next child. 2 Probably, with a reference 
to the current tradition that ascribes the origin of 
man to the earth, and likens his life to that of the 
plant, the Mexicans were accustomed to say that at 
one time all men have been stones, and that at last 
they would all return to stones; 3 and, acting literally 
on this conviction, they interred with the bones of 
the dead a small green stone, which was called the 
principle of life. 

Whether any nations accepted the doctrine of me- 
tempsychosis, and thought that "the souls of their 
grandams might haply inhabit a partridge," we are 
without the means of knowing. La Hontan denies it 
positively of the Algonkins; but the natives of Popo- 

1 La Hontan, Toy. dans V Am. Sept., i. p. 232; Narrative of 
Oceola Nikleanoche, p. 75. 

2 Morse, Rep. on the Ind. Tribes, App. p. 345. 

3 Garcia, Or. de los Indios, lib. iv. cap. 26, p. 310. 



254 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



yan refused to kill doves, says Coreal, 1 because they 
believe them inspired by the souls of the departed. 
And Father Ignatius Chome relates that he heard a 
woman of the Chiriquanes in Buenos Ayres say of a 
fox : " May that not be the spirit of my dead daugh- 
ter?" 3 But before accepting such testimony as deci- 
sive, we must first inquire whether these tribes 
believed in a multiplicity of souls, whether these 
animals had a symbolical value, and if not, whether 
the soul was not simply' presumed to put on this 
shape in its journey to the land of the hereafter: in- 
quiries which are unanswered. Leaving, therefore, 
the question open, whether the sage of Samos had 
any disciples in the new world, another and more 
fruitful topic is presented by their well-ascertained 
notions of the resurrection of the dead. 

This seemingly extraordinary doctrine, which some 
have asserted was entirely unknown and impossible 
to the American Indians, 3 was in fact one of their 
most deeply-rooted and wide-spread convictions, 
especially among the tribes of the eastern United 
States. It is indissolubly connected with their highest 
theories of a future life, their burial ceremonies, and 
their modes of expression. The Moravian Brethren 
give the grounds of this belief with great clearness: 
"That they hold the soul to be immortal, and per- 
haps think the body will rise again, they give not 
unclearly to understand when they say, 'We Indians 
shall not for ever die ; even the grains of corn we put 
under the earth, grow up and become living things.' 

1 Voiages aux Indes Oc, ii. p. 132. 

2 Lettres Edif. et Cur., v. p. 203. 

3 Alger, Hist, of the Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 72. 



THE PRESERVATION OF BOXES. 



255 



They conceive that when the soul has been a while 
with Grod, it can, if it chooses, return to earth and be 
born again." 1 This is the highest and typical creed 
of the aborigines. But instead of simply being born 
again in the ordinary sense of the word, they thought 
the soul would return to the bones, that these would 
clothe themselves with flesh, and that the man would 
rejoin his tribe. That this was the real, though 
often doubtless the dimly understood reason of the 
custom of preserving the bones of the deceased, can 
be shown by various arguments. 

This practice was almost universal. East of the 
Mississippi nearly every nation was accustomed, at 
stated periods — usually once in eight or ten years — 
to collect and clean the osseous remains of those of 
its number who had died in the intervening time, and 
inter them in one common sepulchre, lined with 
choice furs, and marked with a mound of wood, 
stone, and earth. Such is the origin of those immense 
tumuli filled with the mortal remains of nations 
and generations which the antiquary, with irreverent 
curiosity, so frequently chances upon in all portions 
of our territory. Throughout Central America the 
same usage obtained in various localities, as early 
writers and existing monuments abundantly testify. 
Instead of interring the bones, were they those of 
some distinguished chieftain, they were deposited in 
the temples or the council-houses, usually in small 
chests of canes or splints. Such were the charnel- 
houses which the historians of De Soto's expedition 
so often mention, and these are the " arks" which 

1 Loskiel, Ges. der Miss, der evang. Briider, p. 49. 



256 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



Adair and other authors, who have sought to trace 
the descent of the Indians from the Jews, have 
likened to that which the ancient Israelites bore with, 
them on their migrations. A widow among the 
Tahkalis was obliged to carry the bones of her de- 
ceased husband wherever she went for four years, 
preserving them in such a casket handsomely deco- 
rated with feathers. 1 The Caribs of the mainland 
adopted the custom for all without exception. About 
a year after death the bones were cleaned, bleached, 
painted, wrapped in odorous balsams, placed in a 
wicker basket, and kept suspended from the door of 
their dwellings. 2 When the quantity of these heir- 
looms ' became burdensome, they were removed to 
some in accessible cavern, and stowed away with 
reverential care. Such was the cave Ataruipe, a visit 
to which has been so eloquently described by Alex- 
ander von Humboldt in his " Yiews of Nature." 

So great was the filial respect for these remains by 
the Indians, that on the Mississippi, in Peru, and 
elsewhere, no tyranny, no cruelty, so embittered the 
indigenes against the white explorers as the sacrile- 
gious search for treasures perpetrated among the 
sepulchres of past generations. Unable to under- 
stand the meaning of such deep feeling, so foreign to 
the European who, without a second thought, turns 
a cemetery into a public square, or seeds it down in 
wheat, the Jesuit missionaries in Paraguay accuse the 
natives of worshipping the skeletons of their fore- 

1 Richardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 260. 

2 Gumma, Hist, del Orinoco, i. pp. 199, 202, 204. 



THE SOUL IN THE BOXES. 



257 



fathers, 1 and the English in Virginia repeated it of 
the Powhatans. 

The question has been debated and variously an- 
swered, whether the art of mummification was known 
and practised in America. Without entering into 
the discussion, it is certain that preservation of the 
corpse by a long and thorough process of exsiccation 
over a slow fire was nothing unusual, not only in 
Peru, Popoyan, the Carib countries, and Nicaragua, 
but among many of the tribes north of the Grulf of 
Mexico, as I have elsewhere shown. 2 The object 
was essentially the same as when the bones alone 
were preserved; and in the case of rulers, the same 
homage was often paid to their corpses as had been 
the just due of their living bodies. 

The opinion underlying all these customs was, that 
a part of the soul, or one of the souls, dwelt in the 
bones; that these were the seeds which, planted in 
the ' earth, or preserved unbroken in safe places, 
would, in time, put on once again a garb of flesh, and 
germinate into living human beings. Language illus- 
trates this not unusual theory. The Iroquois word 
for bone is esken — for soul, atisken, literally that 
which is within the bone. 3 In an Athapascan dia- 
lect bone is yani, soul i-yune. 4 The Hebrew Eabbis 
taught that in the bone lutz, the coccyx, remained at 
death the germ of a second life, which, at the proper 
time, would develop into the purified body, as the 
plant from the seed. 

1 Kuis, Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay, p. 48, in Lafitau. 

2 Notes on the Floridian Peninsula, pp. 191 sqq. 

3 Bruyas, Bad. Verborum Iroquceorum. 

4 Busckiiiaim, Athapask. Sprachstamm, pp. 182, 188. 

17 



258 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



But mythology and supersitions add more decisive 
testimony. One of the Aztec legends of the origin 
of man was, that after one of the destructions of 
the world the gods took counsel together how to 
renew the species. It was decided that one of their 
number, Xolotl, should descend to Mictlan, the realm 
of the dead, and bring thence a bone of the perished 
race. The fragments of this they sprinkled with 
blood, and on the fourth day it grew into a youth, 
the father of the present race. 1 The profound mys- 
tical significance of this legend is reflected in one 
told by the Quiches, in which the hero gods Hu- 
nahpu and Xblanque succumb to the rulers of 
Xibalba, the darksome powers of death. Their bodies 
are burned, but their bones are ground in a mill and 
thrown in the waters, lest they should come to life. 
Even this precaution is insufficient — "for these ashes 
did not go far; they sank to the bottom of the stream, 
where, in the twinkling of an eye, they were changed 
into handsome youths, and their very same features 
appeared anew. On the fifth day they displayed 
themselves anew, and were seen in the water by the 
people, "* whence they emerged to overcome and de- 
stroy the powers of death and hell (Xibalba). 

The strongest analogies to these myths are offered 
by the superstitious rites of distant tribes. Some of 
the Tupis of Brazil were wont on the death of a 
relative to dry and pulverize his bones and then mix 
them with their food, a nauseous practice they de- 
fended by asserting that the soul of the dead remained 

1 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 41. 

2 Le Livre Sacre des Quiches, pp. 175-177. 

% 



PRESERVATION OF BOXES. 



259 



in the bones and lived again in the living. 1 Even the 
lower animals were supposed to follow the same law. 
Hardly any of the hunting tribes, before their original 
manners were vitiated by foreign influence, permitted 
the bones of game slain in the chase to be broken, or 
left carelessly about the encampment. They were 
collected in heaps, or thrown into the water. Mrs. 
Eastman observes that even yet the Dakotas deem it 
an omen of ill luck in the hunt, if the dogs gnaw the 
bones or a woman inadvertently steps over them ; and 
the Chipeway interpreter, John Tanner, speaks of the 
same fear among that tribe. The Yurucares of 
Bolivia carried it to such an inconvenient extent, 
that they carefully put by even small fish bones, say- 
ing that unless this was done the fish and game would 
disappear from the country. 2 The traveller on our 
western prairies often notices the buffalo skulls, count- 
less numbers of which bleach on those vast plains, 
arranged in circles and symmetrical piles by the care- 
ful hands of the native hunters. The explanation they 
offer for this custom gives the key to the whole theory 
and practice of preserving the osseous relics of the 
dead, as well human as brute. They say that, " the 
bones contain the spirits of the slain animals, and that 
some time in the future they will rise from the earth, 
re-clothe themselves with flesh, and stock the prairies 
anew." 3 This explanation, which comes to us from 
indisputable authority, sets forth in its true light the 
belief of the red race in a resurrection. It is not 
possible to trace it out in the subtleties with which 

1 M tiller, Artier. Urrelig., p. 290, after Spix. 

2 D'Orbigny, Annuaire des Voyages, 1845, p. 77. 

3 Long's Expedition, i. p. 278. 



260 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



theologians have surrounded it as a dogma. The very 
attempt would be absurd. They never occurred to 
the Indian. He thought that the soul now enjoying 
the delights of the happy hunting grounds would 
some time return to the bones, take on flesh, and live 
again. Such is precisely the much discussed state- 
ment that Grarcilasso de la Vega says he often heard 
from the native Peruvians. He adds that so careful 
were they lest any of the body should be lost that 
they preserved even the parings of their nails and 
clippings of the hair. 1 In contradiction to this the 
writer Acosta has been quoted, who says that the 
Peruvians embalmed their dead because they " had 
no knowledge that the bodies should rise with the 
soul." 2 But, rightly understood, this is a confirmation * 
of La Vega's account. Acosta means that the Chris- 
tian doctrine of the body rising from the dust being 
unknown to the Peruvians (which is perfectly true), 
they preserved the body just as it was, so that the 
soul when it returned to earth, as all expected, might 
not be at a loss for a house of flesh. 

The notions thus entertained by the red race on the 
resurrection are peculiar to it, and stand apart from 
those of any other. They did not look for the second 
life to be either better or worse than the present one ; 
they regarded it neither as a reward nor a punish- 
ment to be sent back to the world of the living ; nor 
is there satisfactory evidence that it was ever distinctly 
connected with a moral or physical theory of the des- 
tiny of the universe, or even with their prevalent ex- 

1 Hist, des Incas, lib. iii. chap. 7. 

2 Hist, of the New World, bk\ v. chap. 7. 



THE AMERICAN MILLENNIUM. 



261 



pectation of recurrent epochs in the course of nature. 
It is true that a writer whose personal veracity is above 
all doubt, Mr. Adam Hodgson, relates an ancient 
tradition of the Choctaws, to the effect that the pre- 
sent world will be consumed by a general conflagra- 
tion, after which it will be reformed pleasanter than 
it now is, and that then the spirits of the dead will 
return to the bones in the bone mounds, flesh will 
knit together their loose joints, and they shall again 
inhabit their ancient territory. 1 

There was also a similar belief among the Eskimos. 
They said that in the course of time the waters would 
overwhelm the land, purify it of the blood of the 
dead, melt the icebergs, and wash away the steep 
rocks. A wind would then drive off the waters, and 
the new land would be peopled by reindeers and 
young seals. Then would He above blow once on the 
bones of the men and twice on those of the women, 
whereupon they would at once start into life, and 
lead thereafter a joyous existence. 2 

But though there is nothing in these narratives 
alien to the course of thought in the native mind, yet 
as the date of the first is recent (1820), as they are 
not supported (so far as I know) by similar traditions 
elsewhere, and as they may have arisen from Christian 
doctrines of a millennium, I leave them for future 
investigation. 

What strikes us the most in this analysis of the 
opinions entertained by the red race on a future life 
is the clear and positive hope of a hereafter, in such 

1 Travels in North America, p. 280. 

2 Egede, Nachrichten von Grdnland, p. 156. 



262 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



strong contrast to the feeble and vague notions of the 
ancient Israelites, Greeks, and Eomans, and yet the 
entire inertness of this hope in leading them to a 
purer moral life. It offers another proof that the 
fulfilment of duty is in its nature nowise connected 
with or derived from a consideration of ultimate 
personal consequences. It is another evidence that 
the religious is wholly distinct from the moral senti- 
ment, and that the origin of ethics is not to be sought 
in connection with the ideas of divinity and respon- 
sibility. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE NATIVE PKIESTHOOD. 

Their titles. — Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural means. — 
Their power derived from natural magic and the exercise of the clair- 
voyant and mesmeric faculties. — Examples. — Epidemic hysteria. — 
Their social position. — Their duties as religious functionaries. — Terms 
of admission to the Priesthood. — Inner organization in various nations. 
— Their esoteric languages and secret societies. 

rPHUS picking painfully amid the ruins of a race 
- 1 - gone to wreck centuries ago, thus rejecting much 
foreign rubbish and scrutinizing each stone that lies 
around, if we still are unable to rebuild the edifice 
in its pristine symmetry and beauty, yet we can at 
least discern and trace the ground plan and outlines 
of the fane .it raised to God. Before leaving the 
field to the richer returns of more fortunate work- 
men, it will not be inappropriate to add a sketch of 
the ministers of these religions, the servants in this 
temple. 

Shamans, conjurers, sorcerers, medicine men, 
wizards, and many another hard name have been 
given them, but I shall call them priests, for in their 
poor way, as well as any other priesthood, they set up 
to be the agents of the gods, and the interpreters of 
divinity. No tribe. was so devoid of religious senti- 
ment as to be without them. Their power was terri- 
ble, and their use of it unscrupulous. Neither men 
nor gods, death nor life, the winds nor the waves, 



264 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



were beyond their control. Like Old Men of the 
Sea, they have clung to the neck of their nations, 
throttling all attempts at progress, binding them to 
the thraldom of superstition and profligacy, dragging 
them down to wretchedness and death. Christianity 
and civilization meet in them their most determined, 
most implacable foes. But what is this but the story 
of priestcraft and intolerance everywhere, which Old 
Spain can repeat as well as New Spain, the white 
race as well as the red ? Blind leaders of the blind, 
dupers and duped fall into the ditch. 

In their own languages they are variously called; 
by the Algonkins and Dakotas, " those knowing 
divine things 1 ' and " dreamers of the gods" [manitou- 
siou, wakqnwacijri); in Mexico, £t masters or guardians 
of the divine things" (teopixqui, teotecuhtli) ; in 
Cherokee, their title means, " possessed of the divine 
fire" {atsilung helawhi)] in Iroquois, " keepers of the 
faith" (hon undeunt); in Quichua, "the learned" (amauta)', 
in Maya, " the listeners" (cocome). The popular term 
in French and English of "medicine men" is not such 
a misnomer as might be supposed. The noble science 
of medicine is connected with divinity not only by 
the rudest savage but the profound est philosopher, as 
has been already adverted to. When sickness is 
looked upon as the effect of the anger of a god, or as 
the malicious infliction of a sorcerer, it is natural to 
seek help from those who assume to control the 
unseen world, and influence the fiats of the Almighty. 
The recovery from disease is the kindliest exhibition 
of divine power. Therefore the earliest canons of 
medicine in India and Egypt are attributed to no less 
distinguished authors than the gods Brahma and 



MEDICINE vs. THEOLOGY. 



265 



Thoth; 1 therefore the earliest practitioners of the 
healing art are universally the ministers of religion. 

But, however creditable this origin is to medicine, 
its partnership with theology was no particular 
advantage to it. These mystical doctors shared the 
contempt still so prevalent among ourselves for a 
treatment based on experiment and reason, and re- 
garded the administration of emetics and purgatives, 
baths and diuretics, with a contempt quite equal to 
that of the disciples of Hahnemann. The practitioners 
of the rational school formed a separate class among 
the Indians, and had nothing to do with amulets, 
powwows, or spirits. 2 They were of different name 
and standing, and though held in less estimation, such 
valuable additions to the pharmacopoeia as guaiacum, 
cinchona, and ipecacuanha, were learned from them. 
The priesthood scorned such ignoble means. "Were 
they summoned to a patient, they drowned his groans 
in a barbarous clangor of instruments in order to 
fright away the demon that possessed him; they 
sucked and blew upon the diseased organ, they 
sprinkled him with water, and catching it again threw 
it on the ground, thus drowning out the disease ; they 
rubbed the part with their hands, and exhibiting a 
bone or splinter asserted that they drew it from the 
body, and that it had been the cause of the malady , 
they manufactured a little image to represent the 
spirit of sickness, and spitefully knocked it to pieces, 
thus vicariously destroying its prototype ; they sang 
doleful and- monotonous chants at the top of their 

1 Haeser, GescMchte der Medicin, pp. 4, 7 : Jena, 1845. 

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 440. 



266 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



voices, screwed their countenances into hideous 
grimaces, twisted their bodies into unheard of contor- 
tions, and by all accounts did their utmost to merit 
the honorarium they demanded for their services. A 
double motive spurred them to spare no pains. For 
if they failed, uot only was their reputation gone, but 
the next expert called in was likely enough to hint, 
with that urbanity so traditional in the profession, that 
the illness was in fact caused or much increased by 
the antagonistic nature of the remedies previously 
employed, whereupon the chances were that the 
doctor's life fell into greater jeopardy than that of his 
quondam patient. 

Considering the probable result of this treatment, 
we may be allowed to doubt whether it redounded on 
the whole very much to the honor of the fraternity. 
Their strong points are rather to be looked for in the 
real knowledge gained by a solitary and reflective 
life, by an earnest study of the appearances of nature, 
and of those hints and forest signs which are wholly 
lost on the white man and beyond the ordinary 
insight of a native. Travellers often tell of changes 
of the weather predicted by them with astonishing 
foresight, and of information of singular accuracy 
and extent gleaned from most meagre materials. 
There is nothing in this to shock our sense of pro- 
bability — much to elevate our opinion of the native 
sagacity. They were also adepts in tricks of sleight 
of hand, and had no mean acquaintance with what is 
called natural magic. They would allow themselves 
to be tied hand and foot with knots innumerable, and 
at a sign would shake them loose as so many wisps of 
straw ; they would spit fire and swallow hot coals, 



MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 



267 



pick glowing stones from the flames, walk naked 
through, a fire, and plunge their arms to the shoulder 
in kettles of boiling water with apparent impunity. 1 
Nor was this all. With a skill not inferior to that 
of the jugglers of India, they could plunge knives 
into vital parts, vomit blood, or kill one another out 
and out to all appearances, and yet in a few minutes 
be as well as ever ; they could set fire to articles of 
clothing and even houses, and by a touch of their magic 
restore them instantly as perfect as before. 2 If it were 
not within our power to see most of these miracles 
performed any night in one of our great cities by a 
well dressed professional, we would at once deny 
their possibility. As it is, they astonish us only too 
little. 

One of the most peculiar and characteristic exhi- 
bitions of their power, was to summon a spirit to 
answer inquiries concerning the future and the absent. 
A great similarity marked this proceeding in all 
northern tribes from the Eskimos to the Mexicans. A 
circular or conical lodge of stout poles four or eight 
in number planted firmly in the ground, was covered 
with skins or mats, a small aperture only being left 
for the seer to enter. Once in, he carefully closed 
the hole and commenced his incantation's. Soon the 
lodge trembles, the strong poles shake and bend as 
with the united strength of a dozen men, and strange, 
unearthly sounds, now far aloft in the air, now deep 

1 Carver, Travels in North America, p. 73 : Boston, 1802 ; Nar- 
rative of John Tanner, p. 135. 

2 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. x. cap. 20 ; Le Livre 
Sacre des Quiches, p. 177; Lett, sur les Superstit. du Perou, pp. 
89, 91. 



268 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 

in the ground, anon approaching near and nearer, 
reach the ears of the spectators. At length the priest 
announces that the spirit is present, and is prepared 
to answer questions. An indispensable preliminary 
to any inquiry is to insert a handful of tobacco, or a 
string of beads, or some such douceur under the 
skins, ostensibly for the behoof of the celestial 
visitor, who would seem not to be above earthly 
wants and vanities. The replies received, though 
occasionally singularly clear and correct, are usually 
of that profoundly ambiguous purport which leaves 
the anxious inquirer little wiser than he was before. 
For all this, ventriloquism, trickery, and shrewd 
knavery are sufficient explanations. Nor does it 
materially interfere with this view, that converted 
Indians, on whose veracity we can implicitly rely, 
have repeatedly averred that in performing this rite 
they themselves did not move the medicine lodge ; 
for nothing is easier than in the state of nervous 
excitement they were then in to be self-deceived, as 
the now familiar phenomenon of table-turning illus- 
trates. 

But there is something more than these vulgar arts 
now and then to be perceived. There are statements 
supported by unquestionable testimony, which ought 
not to be passed over in silence, and yet I cannot but 
approach them with hesitation. They are so revolt- 
ing to the laws of exact science, so alien, I had almost 
said, to the experience of our lives. Yet is this 
true, or are such experiences only ignored and put 
aside without serious consideration? Are there not 
in the history of each of us passages which strike 
our retrospective thought with awe, almost with 



NA TIVE CLAIR VO YANCE. 



269 



terror ? Are there not in nearly every community 
individuals who possess a mysterious power, con- 
cerning whose origin, mode of action, and limits, we 
and they are alike in the dark? I refer to such 
organic forces as are popularly summed up under the 
words clairvoyance, mesmerism, rhabdomancy, animal 
magnetism, physical spiritualism. Civilized thou- 
sands stake their faith and hope here and hereafter, 
on the truths of these manifestations ; rational medi- 
cine recognizes their existence, and while it attributes 
them to morbid and exceptional influences, confesses 
its want of more exact knowledge, and refrains from 
barren theorizing. Let us follow her example, and 
hold it enough to show that such powers, whatever 
they are, were known to the native priesthood as 
well as the modern spiritualists, and the miracle 
mongers of the Middle Ages. 

Their highest development is what our ancestors 
called "second sight." That under certain condi- 
tions knowledge can pass from one mind to another 
otherwise than through the ordinary channels of the 
senses, is familiarly shown by the examples of persons 
en rapport. The limit to this we do not know, but it 
is not unlikely that clairvoyance or second sight is 
based upon it. In his autobiography, the celebrated 
Sac chief Black Hawk,, relates that his great grand- 
father " was inspired by a belief that at the end -of 
four years, he should see a white man, who would be 
to him a father." Under the direction of this vision 
he travelled eastward to a certain spot, and there, as 
he was forewarned, met a Frenchman, through whom 
the nation was brought into alliance with France. 1 



1 Life of Black Hawk, p. 13. 



270 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



No one at all versed in the Indian character will 
doubt the implicit faith with which this legend was 
told and heard. But 'we may be pardoned our scepti- 
cism, seeing there are so many chances of error. It is 
not so with an anecdote related by Captain Jonathan 
Carver, a cool-headed English trader, whose little 
book of travels is an unquestioned authority. In 
1767, he was among the Killistenoes at a time when 
they were in great straits for food, and depending 
upon the arrival of the traders to rescue them from 
starvation. They persuaded the chief priest to con- 
sult the divinities as to when the relief would arrive. 
After the usual preliminaries, this magnate announced 
that next day, precisely when the sun reached the 
zenith, a canoe would arrive with further tidings. At 
the appointed hour the whole village, together with 
the incredulous Englishman, was on the beach, and 
sure enough, at the minute specified, a canoe swung 
round a distant point of land, and rapidly approaching 
the shore brought the expected news. 1 

Charlevoix is nearly as trustworthy a writer as 
Carver. Yet he deliberately relates an equally 
singular instance. 2 

But these examples are surpassed by one described 
in the Atlantic Monthly of July, 1866, the author of 
which, John Mason Brown, Esq., has assured me of 
its accuracy in every particular. Some years since, 
at the head of a party of voyageurs, he set forth in 
search of a band of Indians somewhere on the vast 
plains along the tributaries of the Copper-mine and 

1 Travs. in North America, p. 74. 

2 Journal Historique, p. 362. 



THE PO WER OF SECOND SIGHT. 



271 



Mackenzie rivers. Danger, disappointment, and the 
fatigues of the road, induced one after another to 
turn back, until of the original ten only three re- 
mained. They also were on the point of giving up 
the apparently hopeless quest, when they were met 
by some warriors of the very band they were seek- 
ing. These had been sent out by one of their medi- 
cine men to find three whites, whose horses, arms, 
attire, and personal appearance he minutely described, 
which description was repeated to Mr. Brown by the 
warriors before they saw his two companions. When 
afterwards, the priest, a frank and simple-minded 
man, was asked to explain this extraordinary occur- 
rence, he could offer no other explanation than that 
"he saw them coming, and heard them talk on their 
journey." 1 

Many tales such as these have been recorded by 
travellers, and however much they may shock our 
sense of probability, as well-authenticated exhibitions 
of a power which sways the Indian mind, and which 

1 Sometimes facts like this can be explained by the quickness 
ot perception acquired by constant exposure to danger. The 
mind takes cognizance unconsciously of trifling incidents, the 
sum of which leads it to a conviction which the individual re- 
gards almost *as an inspiration. This is the explanation of pre- 
sentiments. But this does not apply to cases like that of Sweden- 
borg, who described a conflagration going on at Stockholm, 
when he was at Gottenberg, three hundred miles away. Psycho- 
logists who scorn any method of studying the mind but through 
physiology, are at a loss in such cases, and take refuge in 
refusing them credence. Theologians call them inspirations 
either of devils or angels, as they happen to agree or disagree in 
religious views with the person experiencing them. True 
science reserves its opinion until further observation enlightens 
it. 



272 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



has ever prejudiced it so unchangeably against Chris- 
tianity and civilization, they cannot be disregarded. 
"Whether they too are but specimens of refined 
knavery, whether they are instigations of the Devil, 
or whether they must be classed with other facts as 
illustrating certain obscure and curious mental facul- 
ties, each may decide as the bent of his mind inclines 
him, for science makes no decision. 

Those nervous conditions associated with the name 
of Mesmer were nothing new to the Indian magi- 
cians. Rubbing and stroking the sick, and the laying 
on of hands, were very common parts of their clinical 
procedures, and at the initiations to their societies 
they were frequently exhibited. Observers have 
related that among the Nez Perce's of Oregon, the 
novice was put to sleep by songs, incantations, and 
" certain passes of the hand," and that with the Da- 
kotas he would be struck lightly on the breast at a 
preconcerted moment, and instantly " would drop 
prostrate on his face, his muscles rigid and quivering 
in every fibre." 1 

There is no occasion to suppose deceit in this. It 
finds its parallel in every race and every age, and 
rests on a characteristic trait of certain epochs and 
certain men, which leads them to seek the divine, 
not in thoughtful contemplation on the laws of the 
universe and the facts of self-consciousness, but in 
an entire immolation of the latter, a sinking of their 
own individuality in that of the spirits whose alliance 
they seek. This is an outgrowth of that ignoring of 
the universality of Law, which belongs to the lower 



1 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, iii. p. 287 ; v. p. 652. 



THE A VEXUES TO DIVIXITY. 



273 



stages of enlightenment. 1 And as this is never clone 
with impunity, but with iron certainty brings its 
punishment with it, the study of the mental condi- 
tions thus evoked, and the results which follow them, 
offers a salutary subject of reflection to the theologian 
as well as the physician. For these examples of 
nervons pathology are identical in kind, and alike in 
consequences, whether witnessed in the primitive 
forests of the New World, among the convulsionists 
of St. Medard, or in the excited scenes of a religious 
revival in one of our own churches. 

Sleeplessness and abstemiousness, carried to the 
utmost verge of human endurance — seclusion, and 
the pertinacious fixing of the mind on one subject — 
obstinate gloating on some morbid fancy, rarely failed 
to bring about hallucinations with all the garb of 
reality. Physicians are well aware that the more 
frequently these diseased conditions of the mind are 
sought, the more readily they are found. Then, 
again, they were often induced by intoxicating and 
narcotic herbs. Tobacco, the maguey, coca; in Cali- 
fornia the chucuaco ; among the Mexicans the snake 
plant, ollinhiqui or coaxihuitl ; and among the south- 
ern tribes of our own country the cassine yupon and 
iris versicolor, 2 were used; and, it is even said, were 

1 " The progress from deepest ignorance to highest enlighten- 
ment," remarks Herbert Spencer in his Social Statics, " is a pro- 
gress from entire unconsciousness of law, to the conviction that 
law is universal and inevitable." 

2 The Creeks had, according to Hawkins, not less than seven 
sacred plants ; chief of them were the cassine yupon, called by 
botanists Ilex vomitoria, or Ilex cassina, of the natural order 
Aquifoliaceae ; and the blue flag, Iris versicolor, natural order 
Iridacese. The former is a powerful diuretic and mild emetic, 

18 



274 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



cultivated for this purpose. The seer must work 
himself up to a prophetic fury, or speechless lie in 
apparent death before the mind of the gods would be 
opened to him. * Trance and ecstasy were the two 
avenues he knew to divinity; fasting and seclusion 
the means employed to discover them. His ideal 
was of a prophet who dwelt far from men, without 
need of food, in constant communion with divinity. 
Such an one, in the legends of the Tupis, resided on 
a mountain glittering with gold and silver, near the 
river Uaupe, his only companion a dog, his only 
occupation dreaming of the gods. When, however, 
an eclipse was near, his dog would bark ; and then, 
taking the form of a bird, he would fly over the vil- 
lages, and learn the changes that had taken place. 1 

But man cannot trample with impunity on the 
laws of his physical ]ife, and the consequences of 
these deprivations and morbid excitements of the 
brain show themselves in terrible pictures. Not un- 
frequently they were carried to the pitch of raving 
mania, reminding one of the worst forms of the Ber- 
serker fury of the Scandinavians, or the Bacchic 
rage of Greece. The enthusiast, maddened with the 
fancies of a disordered intellect, would start forth 
from his seclusion in an access of demoniac frenzy. 
Then woe to the dog, the child, the slave, or the 

and grows only near the sea. The latter is an active emeto- 
cathartic, and is abundant on swampy grounds throughout the 
Southern States. From it was formed the celebrated "black 
drink," with which they opened their councils, and which 
served them in place of spirits. 

1 Martius, Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnem 
Brasiliens, p. 32. 



THE DIVIXE MAD X ESS. 



275 



woman who crossed his path ; for nothing but blood 
could satisfy his inappeasable craving, and they fell 
instant victims to his madness. But were it a strong 
man, he bared his arm, and let the frenzied hermit 
bury his teeth in the quivering flesh. Such is a 
scene at this day not uncommon on the northwest 
coast, and few of the natives around Milbank Sound 
are without the scars the result of this horrid 
custom. 1 

This frenzy, terrible enough in individuals, had 
its most disastrous effects when with that peculiar 
facility of contagion which marks Irysterical maladies, 
it swept through whole villages, transforming them 
into bedlams filled with unrestrained madmen. Those 
who have studied the strange and terrible mental 
epidemics that visited Europe in the middle ages, 
such as the tarantula dance of Apulia, the chorea 
Germanorum, and the great St. Vitus' dance, will be 
prepared to appreciate the nature of a scene at a Hu- 
ron village, described by Father le Jeune in 1639. A 
festival of three days and three nights had been in 
progress to relieve a woman who, from the descrip- 
tion, seems to have been suffering from some obscure 
nervous complaint. Toward the clos$ of this vigil, 
which throughout was marked by all sorts of de- 
baucheries and excesses, all the participants seemed 
suddenly seized by ten thousand devils. They ran 
howling and shrieking through the town, breaking 
everything destructible in the cabins, killing dogs, 
beating the women and children, tearing their gar- 
ments, and scattering the fires in every direction with 



1 Mr. Anderson, in the Am. Hist. Mag., vii. p. 79. 



276 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



bare hands and feet. Some of them dropped senseless, 
to remain long or permanently insane, but the others 
continued until worn out with exhaustion. The Father 
learned that during these orgies not ^infrequently 
whole villages were consumed, and the total extirpa- 
tion of some families had resulted. No wonder that 
he saw in them the diabolical workings of the prince 
of evil, but the physician is rather inclined to class 
them with those cases of epidemic hysteria, the 
common products of violent and ill-directed mental 
stimuli. 1 

These various considerations prove beyond a doubt 
that the power of the priesthood did by no means 
rest exclusively on deception. They indorse and 
explain the assertions of converted natives, that their 
power as prophets was something real, and entirely 
inexplicable to themselves. And they make it easily 
understood how those missionaries failed who at- 
tempted to persuade them that all this boasted power 
was false. More correct views than these ought to 
have been suggested by the facts themselves, for it is 

1 Such spectacles were nothing uncommon. They are fre- 
quently mentioned in the Jesuit Relations, and they were the 
chief obstacles to missionary labor. In the debauches and ex- 
cesses that excited these temporary manias, in the recklessness of 
life and property they fostered, and in their disastrous effects on 
mind and body, are depicted more than in any other one trait the 
thorough depravity of the race^and its tendency to ruin. In the 
quaint words of one of the Catholic fathers, " If the old proverb 
is true that every man has a grain of madness in his composition, 
it must be confessed that this is a people where each has at least 
half an ounce" (De Quen, Bel. de la Nouv. France, 1656, p. 27). 
For the instance in the text see Bel. de la Nouv. France, An 
1639, pp. 88-94. 



TEE PO WER OF TEE PRIESTS. 



217 



indisputable that these magicians did not hesitate at 
times to test their strength on each other. In these 
strange duels d Voutrance, one would be seated oppo- 
site his antagonist, surrounded with the mysterious 
emblems of his craft, and call upon his gods one after 
another to strike his enemy dead. Sometimes one, 
" gathering his medicine," as it was termed, feeling 
within himself that hidden force of will which makes 
itself acknowledged even without words, would rise 
in his might, and in a loud and severe voice command 
his opponent to die ! Straightway the latter would 
drop dead, or yielding in craven fear to a superior 
volition, forsake the implements of his art, and with 
an awful terror at his heart, creep to his lodge, refuse 
all nourishment, and presently perish. Still more 
terrible was the tyranny they exerted on the super- 
stitious minds of the masses. Let an Indian once be 
possessed of the idea that he is bewitched, and he will 
probably reject all food, and sink under the phantoms 
of his own fancy. 

How deep the superstitious veneration of these 
men has struck its roots in the soul of the Indian, it 
is difficult for civilized minds to conceive. Their 
power is currently supposed to be without any bounds, 
" extending to the raising of the dead and the con- 
trol of all laws of nature." 1 The grave offers no 
escape from their omnipotent arms. The Sacs and 
Foxes, Algonkin tribes, think that the soul cannot 
leave the corpse until set free by the medicine men 
at their great annual feast; 2 and the Puelches of 

1 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, v. p. 423. 

2 J. M. Stanley, in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Contribu- 
tions, ii. p. 38. 



278 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



Buenos Ayres guard a profound silence as they pass 
by the tomb of some redoubted necromancer, lest 
they should disturb his repose, and suffer from his 
malignant skill. 1 

While thus investigating their real and supposed 
power over the physical and mental world, their 
strictly priestly functions, as performers of the rites 
of religion, have not been touched upon. Among 
the ruder tribes these, indeed, were of the most rudi- 
mentary character. Sacrifices, chiefly in the form of 
feasts, where every one crammed to his utmost, 
dances, often winding up with the wildest scenes of 
licentiousness, the repetition of long and monotonous 
chants, the making of the new fire, these are the cere- 
monies that satisfy the religious wants of savages. 
The priest finds a further sphere for his activity in 
manufacturing and consecrating amulets to keep off 
ill luck, in interpreting dreams, and especially in 
lifting the veil of the future. In Peru, for example, 
they were divided into classes, who made the vari- 
ous means of divination specialties. Some caused the 
idols to speak, others derived their foreknowledge 
from words spoken by the dead, others predicted by 
leaves of tobacco or the grains and juice of cocoa, 
while to still other classes, the shapes of grains of 
maize taken at random, the appearance of animal ex- 
crement, the forms assumed by the smoke rising 
from burning victims, the entrails and viscera of ani- 
mals, the course taken by a certain species of spider, 
the visions seen in drunkeness, the flights of birds, 
and the directions in which fruits would fall, all 



1 D'Orbigny, IS Homme Amerieain, ii. p. 81. 



ADMISSION TO THE PRIESTHOOD. 



279 



offered so many separate fields of prognostication, 
the professors of which, were distinguished by differ- 
ent ranks and titles. 1 

As the intellectual force of the nation was chiefly 
centred in this class, they became the acknowledged 
depositaries of its sacred legends, the instructors in 
the art of preserving thought; and from their duty 
to regulate festivals, sprang the observation of the 
motions of the heavenly bodies, the adjustment of the 
calendars, and the pseudo-science of judicial astro- 
logy. The latter was carried to as subtle a pitch of 
refinement in Mexico as in the old world; and large 
portions of the ancient writers are taken up with ex- 
plaining the method adopted by the native astrolo- 
gers to cast the horoscope, and reckon the nativity of 
the newly-born infant. 

How was this superior power obtained? What 
were the terms of admission to this privileged class ? 
In the ruder communities the power was strictly per- 
sonal. It was revealed to its possessor by the cha- 
racter of the visions he perceived at the ordeal he 
passed through on arriving at puberty; and by the 
northern nations was said to be the manifestation of 
a more potent personal spirit than ordinary. It was 
not a faculty, but an inspiration; not an inborn 
strength, but a spiritual gift. The curious theory of 
the Dakotas, as recorded by the Eev. Mr. Pond, 
was that the necromant first wakes to conscious- 
ness as a winged seed, wafted hither and thither by 
the intelligent action of the Four Winds. In this 
form he visits the homes of the different classes of 



1 See Balboa, Hist, du Perou, pp. 28-30. 



280 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



divinities, and learns the chants, feasts, and dances, 
which it is proper for the human race to observe, the 
art of omnipresence or clairvoyance, the means of in- 
flicting and healing diseases, and the occult secrets of 
nature, man, and divinity. This is called " dreaming 
of the gods." When this instruction is completed, 
the seed enters one about to become a mother, as- 
sumes human form, and in due time manifests his 
powers. Four such incarnations await it, each of in- 
creasing might, and then the spirit returns to its origi- 
nal nothingness. The same necessity of death and re- 
surrection was entertained by the Eskimos. To be- 
come of the highest order of priests, it was supposed 
requisite, says Bishop Egede, that one of the lower, 
order should be drowned and eaten by sea monsters. 
Then, when his bones, one after another, were all 
washed ashore, his spirit, which meanwhile had been 
learning the secrets of the invisible world, would re- 
turn to them, and, clothed in flesh, he would go back 
to his tribe. At other times a vague and indescriba- 
ble longing seizes a young person, a morbid appetite 
possesses them, or they fall a prey to an inappeasable 
and aimless restlessness, or a causeless melancholy. 
These signs the old priests recognize as the expres- 
sion of a personal spirit of the higher order. They 
take charge of the youth, and educate him to the 
mysteries of their craft. For months or years he is 
condemned to entire seclusion, receiving no visits but 
from the brethren of his order. At length he is ini- 
tiated with ceremonies of more or less pomp into the 
brotherhood, and from that time assumes that gravity 
of demeanor, sententious style of expression, and 
general air of mystery and importance, everywhere 



A HEREDITARY PRIESTHOOD. 



281 



deemed so eminently becoming in a doctor and a 
priest. A peculiarity of the Moxos was, that they 
thought' none designated for the office but such as 
had escaped from the claws of the South American 
tiger, which, indeed, it is said they worshipped as a 
god. 1 

Occasionally, in very uncultivated tribes, some 
family or totem claimed a monopoly of the priest- 
hood. Thus, among the Nez Perces of Oregon, it 
was transmitted in one family from father to son and 
daughter, but always with the- proviso that the chil- 
dren at the proper age reported dreams of a satisfac- 
tory character. 2 Perhaps alone of the Algonkin 
tribes the Shawnees confined it to one totem, but it 
is remarkable that the greatest of their prophets, 
Elskataway, brother of Tecumseh, was not a member 
of this clan. From the most remote times, the Chero- 
kees have had one family set apart for the priestly 
office. This was when first known to the whites that 
of the Nicotani, but its members, puffed up with 
pride and insolence, abused their birthright so shame- 
fully, and prostituted it so flagrantly to their own 
advantage, that with savage justice they were massa- 
cred to the last man. Another was appointed in their 
place who to this day officiates in all religious rites. 
They have, however, the superstition, possibly bor- 
rowed from Europeans, that the seventh son is a natu- 
ral born prophet, with the gift of healing by touch. 3 
Aclair states that their former neighbors, the Choc- 

1 D'Orbigny, H Homme Americain, ii. p. 235. 

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 652. 

3 Dr. Mac Gowan, in the Amer. Hist, Mag., x. p. 139 ; Whip- 
ple, Rep. on the Ind. Tribes, p. 35. 



2S2 



THE XATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



taws, permitted the office of high priest, or Great 
Beloved Man, to remain in one family, passing from 
father to eldest son, and the very influential piaches 
of the Carib tribes very generally transmitted their 
rank and position to their children. 

In ancient Anahuac the prelacy was as systematic 
and its rules as well defined, as in the Church of Rome. 
Except those in the service of Huitzilopochtli, and 
perhaps a few other gods, none obtained the priestly 
office by right of descent, but were dedicated to it 
from early childhood. Their education was com- 
pleted at the Calmecac, a sort of ecclesiastical college, 
where instruction was given in all the wisdom of the 
ancients, and the esoteric lore of their craft. The art 
of mixing colors and tracing designs, the ideographic 
writing and phonetic hieroglyphs, the songs and 
prayers used in public worship, the national tradi- 
tions and the principles of astrology, the hidden 
meaning of symbols and the use of musical instru- 
ments, all formed parts of the really extensive course 
of instruction they there received. When they mani- 
fested a satisfactory acquaintance with this curricu- 
lum, they were appointed by their superiors to such 
positions as their natural talents and the use they had 
made of them qualified them for, some to instruct 
children, others to the service of the temples, and 
others again to take charge of what we may call 
country parishes. Implicit subordination of all to 
the high priest of Huitzilopochtli, hereditary pontifex 
maximus, chastity, or at least temperate indulgence 
in pleasure, gravity of carriage, and strict attention 
to duty, were laws laid upon all. 

The state religion of Peru was conducted under the 



THE ROBES OF OFFICE. 



233 



supervision of a high priest of the Inca family, and 
its ministers, as in Mexico, could be of either sex, and 
hold office either by inheritance, education, or elec- 
tion. For political reasons, the most important posts 
were usually enjoyed by relatives of the ruler, but 
this was usage, not law. It is stated by Garcilasso 
de la Vega 1 that they served in the temples by turns, 
each being on duty the fourth of a lunar month at a 
time. Were this substantiated it would offer the only 
example of the regulation of public life by a week of 
seven days to be found in the New World. 

In every country there is perceptible a desire in 
this class of men to surround themselves with mys- 
tery, and to concentrate and increase their power by 
forming an intimate alliance among themselves. 
They affected singularity in dress and a professional 
costume. Bartram describes the junior priests of the 
Creeks as dressed in white robes and carrying on 
their head or arm " a great owlskin, stuffed very in- 
geniously, as an insignia of wisdom and divination. 
These bachelors are also distinguishable from the 
other people by their taciturnity, grave and solemn 
countenance, dignified step, and singing to themselves 
songs or hymns, in a low sweet voice, as they stroll 
about the towns." 2 The priests of the civilized 
nations adopted various modes of dress to typify the 
divinity which they served, and their appearance was 
often in the highest degree unprepossessing. 

To add to their self-importance they pretended to 
converse in a tongue different from that used in 

1 Hist, des Incas, lib. iii. ch. 22. 

2 Travels in the Caroli?ias, p. 504. 



284 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



ordinary life, and the chants containing the prayers 
and legends were often in this esoteric dialect. Frag- 
ments of one or two of these have floated down to 
ns from the Aztec priesthood. The travellers Balboa 
and Coreal, mention that the temple services of Peru 
were conducted in a language not understood by the 
masses, 1 and the incantations of the priests of Pow- 
hatan were not in ordinary Algonkin, but some 
obscure jargon. 2 The same peculiarity has been ob- 
served among the Dakotas and Eskimos, and in these 
nations, fortunately, it fell under the notice of com- 
petent linguistic scholars, who have submitted it to 
a searching examination. The results of their labors 

1 Hist, du Perou, p. 128 ; Voiages aux Indes Occidentals, ii. 
p. 97. 

2 Beverly, Hist, de la Virginie, p. 266. The dialect lie specifies 
is " celle d'Occaniches," and on page 252 lie says, " On dit que 
la langue universelle des Indiens de ces Quartiers est celle des 
Occaniches, quoiqu'ils ne soient qu'une petite Nation, depuis 
que les Anglois connoissent ce Pais; mais je ne sais pas la dif- 
ference qui'l y a entre cette langue et celle des Algonkins." 
(French trans., Orleans, 1707.) This is undoubtedly the same 
people that Johannes Lederer, a German traveller, .visited in 
1670, and calls Akenatzi. They dwelt on an island, in a branch 
of the Chowan River, the Sapona, or Deep River (Lederer's Dis- 
covery of 'North America, in Harris, Voyages, p. 20). Thirty 
years later the English surveyor, Lawson, found them in the 
same spot, and speaks of them as the Acanechos (see Am. Hist. 
Mag., i. p. 163). Their totem was that of the serpent, and their 
name is not altogether unlike the Tuscarora name of this animal 
usquauhne. As the serpent was so widely a sacred animal, this 
gives Beverly's remarks an unusual significance. It by no 
means follows from this name that they were of Iroquois descent. 
Lederer travelled with a Tuscarora (Iroquois) interpreter, who 
gave them their name in his own tongue. On the contrary, it is 
extremely probable that they were an Algonkin totem, which 
had the exclusive right to the priesthood. 



THE ESOTERIC LANGUAGE. 



285 



prove that certainly in these two instances the*sup- 
posed foreign tongues were nothing more than the 
ordinary dialects of the country modified by an 
affected accentuation, by the introduction of a few 
cabalistic terms, and by the use of descriptive cir- 
cumlocutions and figurative words in place of ordi- 
nary expressions, a slang, in short, such as rascals 
and pedants invariably coin whenever they associate. 1 

All these stratagems were intended to shroud with 
impenetrable secrecy the mysteries of the brother- 
hood. With the same motive, the priests formed 
societies of different grades of illumination, only to 
be entered by those willing to undergo trying ordeals, 
whose secrets were not to be revealed under the 
severest penalties. The Algonkins had three such 
grades, the waubeno, the meda, and the jossakeed, the 
last being the highest. To this no white man was 
ever admitted. All tribes appear to have been con- 
trolled by these secret societies. Alexander von 
Humboldt mentions one, called that of the Botuto or 
Holy Trumpet, among the Indians of the Orinoko, 
whose members must vow celibacy and submit to 
severe scourgings and fasts. The Collahuayas of 
Peru were a guild of itinerant quacks and magicians, 
who never remained permanently -in one spot. 

Withal, there was no class of persons who so 
widely and deeply influenced the culture and shaped 
the destiny of the Indian tribes, as their priests. In 
attempting to gain a true conception of the race's 

1 Riggs, Gram, and Diet, of the Dakota, p. ix ; Kane, Second 
Grinnell Expedition, ii. p. 127. Paul Egede gives a number of 
words and expressions in the dialect of the sorcerers, Nachrichten 
Don Gronland, p. 122. 



286 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



capacities and history, there is no one element of 
their social life which demands closer attention than 
the power of these teachers. Hitherto, they have 
been spoken of with a contempt which I hope this 
chapter shows is unjustifiable. However much we 
may deplore the use they made of their skill, we 
must estimate it fairly, and grant it its due weight in 
measuring the influence of the religious sentiment 
on the history of man. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE KELIGIONS ON THE 
MOEAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE EACE. 

Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of Grood. — Dis- 
tinctions to be drawn. — Morality not derived from religion. — The posi- 
tive side of natural religions in incarnations of divinity. — Examples. — 
Prayers as indices of religious progress. — Religion and social advance- 
ment. — Conclusion. 

"HRAWINGr toward the conclusion of my essay, I 
■*< am sensible that the vast field of American my- 
thology remains for most part untouched — that I 
have but proved that it is not an absolute wilderness, 
pathless as the tropical jungles which now conceal 
the temples of the race; but that, go where we will, 
certain landmarks and guide-posts are visible, re- 
vealing uniformity of design and purpose, and re- 
futing, by their presence, the oft-repeated charge of 
entire incoherence and aimlessness. It remains to 
examine the subjective power of the native religions, 
their influence on those who held them, and the place 
they deserve in the history of the race. What are 
their merits, if merits they have? what their demerits ? 
Did they purify the life and enlighten the mind, or 
the contrary ? Are they in short of evil or of good ? 
The problem is complex — its solution most difficult. 
The author who of late years has studied most pro- 
foundly the savage races of the globe, expresses the 
discouraging conviction : " Their religions have not 



288 INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 



acted as levers to raise them to civilization; they 
have rather worked, and that powerfully, to impede 
every step in advance, in the first place by ascribing 
everything unintelligible in nature to spiritual agency, 
and then by making the fate of man dependent on 
mysterious and capricious forces, not on his own skill 
and foresight." 1 

It would ill accord with the theory of mythology 
which I have all along maintained if this verdict 
were final. But in fact these false doctrines brought 
with them their own antidotes, at least to some ex- 
tent, and while we give full weight to their evil, let 
us also acknowledge their good. By substituting 
direct divine interference for law, belief for know- 
ledge, a dogma for a fact, the highest stimulus to 
mental endeavor was taken away. Nature, to the 
heathen, is no harmonious whole swayed by eternal 
principles, but a chaos of causeless effects, the mean- 
ingless play of capricious ghosts. He investigates 
not, because he doubts not. All events are to him 
miracles. Therefore his faith knows no bounds, and 
those who teach that doubt is sinful must contem- 
plate him with admiration. The damsels of Nica- 
ragua destined to be thrown into the seething craters 
of volcanoes, went to their fate, says Pascual de 
Andagoya, "happy as if they were going to be 
saved," 2 and doubtless believing so. The subjects of 
a Central American chieftain, remarks Oviedo, " look 
upon it as the crown of favors to be permitted to die 
with their cacique, and thus to acquire immortality." 3 

1 Waitz, Anthropologic der Naturvoelker, i. p. 459. 

2 Navarrete, Viages, iii. p. 415. 

3 Relation de Cueba, p. 140. Ed. Ternaux-Cornpans. 



TOLERANCE OF NATURAL RELIGIONS. 



239 



The terrible power exerted by the priests rested, as 
the j themselves often saw, largely on the implicit 
and literal acceptance of their dicta. 

In some respects the contrast here offered to en- 
lightened nations is not always in favor of the latter. 
Borrowing the pointed antithesis of the poet, the mind 
is often tempted to exclaim — 

"This is all 
The gain we reap from all the wisdom sown 
Through ages : Nothing doubted those first sons 
Of Time, while we, the schooled of centuries, 
Nothing believe." 

But the complaint is unfounded. Faith is dearly 
bought at the cost of knowledge; nor in a better 
sense has it yet gone from among us. Far more sub- 
lime than any known to the barbarian is the faith of/ 
the astronomer, who spends the nights in marking 
the seemingly wayward motions of the stars, or of 
the anatomist, who studies with unwearied zeal the 
minute fibres of the organism, each upheld by the 
unshaken conviction that from least to greatest 
throughout this universe, purpose and order every- 
where prevail. 

Natural religions rarely offer more than this nega- 
tive opposition to reason. They are tolerant to a 
degree. The savage, void' of any clear conception of 
a supreme deity, sets up no claim that his is the only 
true church. If he is conquered in battle, he imagines 
that it is owing to the inferiority of his own gods to 
those of his victor, and he rarely therefore requires 
any other reasons to make him a convert. Acting on 
this principle, the Incas, when they overcame a 
strange province, sent its most venerated idol for a 
19 



290 INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 

time to the temple of the Sun at Cuzco, thus proving 
its inferiority to their own divinity, but took no more 
violent steps to propagate their creeds. 1 So in the 
city of Mexico there was a temple appropriated to 
the idols of conquered nations in which they were 
shut up, both to prove their weakness and prevent 
them from doing mischief. A nation, like an indi- 
vidual, was not inclined to patronize a deity who had 
manifested his incompetence by allowing his charge 
to be gradually worn away by constant disaster. As 
far as can now be seen, in matters intellectual, the 
religions of ancient Mexico and Peru were far more 
liberal than that introduced by the Spanish conquer- 
ors, which, claiming the monopoly of truth, sought 
to enforce its claim by inquisitions and censorships. 

In this view of the relative powers of deities lay a 
potent corrective to the doctrine that the fate of man 
was dependent on the caprices of the gods. For no 
belief was more universal than that which assigned 
to each individual a guardian spirit. This invisible 
monitor was an ever present help in trouble. He 
suggested expedients, gave advice and warning in 
dreams, protected in danger, and stood ready to foil 
the machinations of enemies, divine or human. With 
unlimited faith in this protector, attributing to him 
the devices suggested by his own quick wits and the 
fortunate chances of life, the savage escaped the 
oppressive thought that he was the slave of demoniac 
forces, and dared the dangers of the forest and the 
war path without anxiety. 

By far the darkest side of such a religion is that 
which it presents to morality. The religious sense 



1 La Vega, Hist, des Incas, liv. v. cap. 12. 



THE MEANING OF SACRIFICE. 



291 



is by no means the voice of conscience. The Takahli 
Indian when sick makes a full and free confession of 
sins, but a murder, however unnatural and unpro- 
voked, he does not mention, not counting it crime. 1 
Scenes of brutal licentiousness were approved and 
sustained throughout the continent as acts of worship ; 
maidenhood was in many parts freely offered up or 
claimed by the priests as a right ; in Central America 
twins were slain for religious motives ; human sacri- 
fice was common throughout the tropics, and was not 
unusual in higher latitudes; cannibalism was often 
enjoined; and in Peru, Florida, and Central America 
it was not uncommon for parents to slay their own 
children at the behest of a priest. 2 The philosophical 
moralist, contemplating such spectacles, has thought 
to recognize in them one consoling trait. All his- 
tory, it has been said, shows man living under an 
irritated God, and seeking to appease him by sacrifice 
of blood ; the essence of all religion, it has been 
added, lies in that of which sacrifice is the symbol, 
namely, in the offering up of self, in the rendering 
up of our will to the will of Grod. 3 But sacrifice, 

1 Morse, Bep. on the Ind. Tribes, App. p. 345. 

2 Ximenes, Origen de los Indios de Guatemala, p. 192 ; Acosta, 
Hist, of the New World, lib. v. chap. 18. 

3 Joseph de Maistre, Eclair 'cissement sur les Sacrifices ; Trench, 
Hulsean Lectures, p. 180. The famed Abbe Lammennais and 
Professor Sepp, of Munich, with these two writers, may be taken 
as the chief exponents of a school of mythologists, all of whom 
start from the theories first laid down by Count de Maistre in his 
Soirees de St. Petersbourg. To them the strongest proof of 
Christianity lies in the traditions and observances of heathen- 
dom. For these show the wants of the religious sense, and 
Christianity, they maintain, purifies and satisfies them all. The 
rites, symbols, and legends of every natural religion, they say, 



292 



INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 



when not a token of gratitude, cannot be thus ex- 
plained. It is not a rendering up, but a substitution 
of our will for God's will. A deity is angered by 
neglect of his dues ; he will revenge, certainly, terri- 
bly, we know not how or when. But as punishment 
is all he desires, if we punish ourselves he will be 
satisfied ; and far better is such self-inflicted torture 
than a fearful looking for of judgment to come. 
Craven fear, not without some dim sense of the im- 
placability of nature's laws, is at its root. Looking 
only at this side of religion, the ancient philosopher 
averred that the gods existed solely in the apprehen- 
sions of their votaries, and the moderns have asserted 
that "fear is the father of religion, love her late-born 
daughter;" 1 that "the first form of religious belief is 
nothing else but a horror of the unknown," and that 
"no natural religion appears to have been able to 
develop from a germ within itself anything whatever 
of real advantage to civilization." 2 

Far be it from me to excuse the enormities thus 
committed under the garb of religion, or to ignore 
their disastrous consequences on human progress. 
Yet this question is a fair one — If the natural reli- 
gious belief has in it no germ of anything better, 

are true and not false ; all that is required is to assign them their 
proper places and their real meaning. Therefore the strange 
resemblances in heathen myths to what is revealed in the Scrip- 
tures, as well as the ethical anticipations which have been found 
in ancient philosophies, all, so far from proving that Christianity 
is a natural product of the human mind, infact, are confirmations 
of it, unconscious prophecies, and presentiments of the truth. 

1 Alfred Maury, La Magieet V Astrologie dans VAntiquite et au 
Moyen Age, p. 8 : Paris, 1860. 

2 Waitz, Anthropologic, i. pp. 325, 465. 



THE TRUTH OF NATURAL RELIGION. 



293 



whence comes the manifest and undeniable improve- 
* ment occasionally witnessed — as, for example, among 
the Toltecs, the Peruvians, and the Mayas? The 
reply is, by the influence of great men, who cultivated 
within themselves a purer faith, lived it in their 
lives, preached it successfully to their fellows, and, 
at their death, still survived in the memory of their 
nation, unforgotten models of noble qualities. 1 
Where, in America, is any record of such men? 
"We are pointed, in answer, to Quetzj^coatl, Vira^ 
cocha^Zamna, and their congeners. But these august 
figures I have shown to be wholly mythical, creations 
of the religious fancy, parts and parcels of the earliest 
religion itself. The entire theory falls to nothing, 
therefore, and we discover a positive side to natural 
religions — one that conceals a germ of endless pro- 
gress, which vindicates their lofty origin, and proves 
that He "is not far from every one of us." 

I have already analyzed these figures under their 
physical aspect. Let it be observed in what antithesis 
they stand to most other mythological creations. 
Let it be remembered that they primarily correspond 
to the stable, the regular, the cosmical phenomena, 
that they are always conceived under human form, 
not as giants, fairies, or strange beasts; that they 
were said at one time to have been visible leaders of 
their nations, that they did not suffer death, and that, 
though absent, they are ever present, favoring those 
who remain mindful of their precepts. I touched 
but incidentally on their moral aspects. This was 
likewise in contrast to the majority of inferior deities. 



1 So says Dr. Waitz, ibid., p. 465. 



294 INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 

The worship of the latter was a tribute extorted by 
fear. The Indian deposits tobacco on the rocks of a 
rapid, that the spirit of the swift waters may not 
swallow his canoe; in a storm he throws overboard 
a dog to appease the siren of the angry waves. He 
used to tear the hearts from his captives to gain the 
favor of the god of war. He provides himself with 
talismans to bind hostile deities. He fees the con- 
jurer to exorcise the demon of disease. He loves 
none of them, he respects none of them ; he only fears 
their wayward tempers. They are to him myste- 
rious, invisible, capricious goblins. But, in his 
|highest divinity, he recognized a Father and a Pre- 
server, a benign Intelligence, who provided for him 
the comforts of life — man, like himself, yet a god — 
IGod of All. " Go and do good," was the parting 
injunction of his father to Michabo in Algonkin 
legend ;* and in their ancient and uncorrupted stories 
such is ever his object. "The worship of Tamu," 
the culture hero of the Guaranis, says the traveller 
D'Orbigny, "is one of reverence, not of fear." 2 They ' 
were ideals, summing up in themselves the best 
traits, the most approved virtues of whole nations, 
and were adored in a very different spirit from other 
divinities. 

None of them has more humane and elevated traits i 
than Quetzalcoatl. He was represented of majestic I 
stature and dignified demeanor. In his train camel 
skilled artificers and men of learning. He was chaste 
and temperate in life, wise in council, generous of j 

1 Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. p. 143. 

2 X' Homme Americain, ii. p. 319. 



THE TRUTH OF NATURAL RELIGIONS. 



205 



gifts, conquering rather by arts of peace than of war ; 
delighting in music, flowers, and brilliant colors, and 
so averse to human sacrifices that he shut his ears 
with both hands when they were even mentioned. 1 
.jSuch was the ideal man and supreme god of a people 
who even a Spanish monk of the sixteenth century 
felt constrained to confess -were " a good people, 
attached to virtue, urbane and simple in social inter- 
course, shunning lies, skilful in arts, pious toward 
their gods." 2 Is it likely, is it possible, that with 
such a model as this before their minds, they received 
no benefit from it ? Was not this a lever, and a 
mighty one, lifting the race toward civilization and 
a purer faith ? 

Transfer the field of observation to Yucatan, and 
we find in Zamna, to New Granada and in Nemque- 
jteba, to Peru and in Viracocha, or his reflex Manco 
Capac, the lineaments of Quetzalcoatl — modified, in- 
deed, by difference of blood and temperament, but 
each combining in himself all the qualities . most 
esteemed by their several nations. Were one or all 
of these proved to be historical personages, still the 
fact remains that the primitive religious sentiment, 
investing them with the best attributes of humanity, 
dwelling on them as its models, worshipping them as 
gods, contained a kernel of truth potent to encourage 
moral excellence. But if they were, mythical, then 
this truth was of spontaneous growth, self-developed 
by the growing distinctness of the idea of Grod, a 
living witness that the religious sense, like every 

1 Brasseur, Hist, clu Mexique, liv. iii. chaps. 1 and 2. 

2 Sahagun, Hist, cle la Nueva Espana, lib. . . cap. 29. 



296 



INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 



other faculty, has within itself a power of endless 
evolntion. 

If we inquire the secret of the happier influence of 
this element in natural worship, it is all contained in 
one word — its humanity. 11 The Ideal of Morality," 
says the contemplative Novalis, "has no more dan- 
gerous rival than the Ideal of the Greatest Strength, 
of the most vigorous life, the Brute Ideal" (das Thier- 
IdeaT). 1 Culture advances in proportion as man re- 
cognizes what faculties are peculiar to him asjnan^ 
and devotes himself to their education. The moral 
value of religions can be very precisely estimated by 
the human or the brutal character of their gods. The 
worship of Quetzalcoatl in the city of Mexico was 
subordinate to that of lower conceptions, and conse- 
quently the more sanguinary and immoral were the 
rites there practised. The Algonkins, who knew no 
other meaning for Michabo than the Great Hare, had 
lost, by a false etymology, the best part of their 
religion. 

Looking around for other standards wherewith to 
measure the progress of the knowledge of divinity in 
the New World, prayer suggests itself as one of the 
least deceptive. " Prayer," to quote again the words of j 
Novalis, 2 "is in religion what thought is in philoso- j 
phy. The religious sense prays, as the reason thinks." 
Guizot, carrying the analysis farther, thinks that it is 
prompted by a painful conviction of the inability of 
our will to conform to the dictates of reason. 3 Origin- 
ally it was connected with the belief that divine 

1 Novalis, Schriften, i. p. 244 : Berlin, 1837. 

2 Ibid., p. 267. 

3 Hist, de la Civilisation en France, i. pp. 122, 130. 



TEE CHARACTER OF PRAYERS. 



297 



caprice, not divine law, governs the universe, and 
that material benefits rather than spiritual gifts are 
to be desired. The gradual recognition of its limita- / 
tions and proper objects marks religious advance- 
ment. The Lord's Prayer contains seven petitions, 
only one of which is for a temporal advantage, and it 
the least that can be asked for. What immeasura- 
ble interval between it and the prayer of the Nootka 
Indian on preparing for war ! — 

" Great Quahootze, let me live, not be sick, find 
the enemy, not fear him, find him asleep, and kill a 
great many of him." 1 

Or again, between it and the petition of a Huron to 
a local god, heard by Father Brebeuf : — 

" Oki, thou who livest in this spot, I offer thee 
tobacco. Help us, save us from shipwreck, defend 
us from our enemies, give us a good trade, and bring 
us back safe and sound to our villages." 2 

This is a fair specimen of the supplications of the 
lowest religion. Another equally authentic is given 
by Father Allouez. 3 In 1670 he penetrated to an 
outlying Algonkin village, never before visited by a 
white man. The inhabitants, startled by his pale 
face and long black gown, took him for a divinity. 
They invited him to the council lodge, a circle of old 
men gathered around him, and one of them, approach- 
ing him with a double handful of tobacco, thus ad- 
dressed him, the others grunting approval : — 

1 Narrative of J. B. Jeicett among the Savages of Nootka 
Sound, p. 121. 

2 Eel, de la Now). France, An 1636, p. 109. 

3 Ibid., An 1670, p. 99. 



298 INFLUEXCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 



" This, indeed, is well, Blackrobe, that thou dost 
visit us. Have mercy upon us. Thou art a Manito. 
We give thee to smoke. 

" The Naudowessies and Iroquois are devouring 
us. Have mercy upon us. 

" We are often sick ; our children die ; we are 
hungry. Have mercy upon us. Hear me, 0 Manito, 
I give thee to smoke. 

" Let the earth yield us corn ; the rivers give us 
fish ; sickness not slay us ; nor hunger so torment us. 
Hear us, O Manito, we give thee to smoke." 

In this rude but touching petition, wrung from the 
heart of a miserable people, nothing but their 
wretchedness is visible. Not the faintest trace of an 
aspiration for spiritual enlightenment cheers the eye 
of the philanthropist, not the remotest conception 
that through suffering we are purified can be de- 
tected. 

By the side of these examples we may place the 
prayers of Peru and Mexico, forms composed by the 
priests, written out, committed to memory, and re- 
peated at certain seasons. They are not less authen- 
tic, having been collected and translated in the first 
generation after the conquest. One to Viracocha 
Pachacamac, was as follows : — 

" 0 Pachacamac, thou who hast existed from the 
beginning and shalt exist unto the end, powerful and 
pitiful; who createdst man by saying, let man be;/ 
who defendest us from evil and preservest our life 
and health ; art thou in the sky or in the earth, in 
the clouds or in the depths ? Hear the voice of him 
who implores thee, and grant him his petitions. Give 



THE CHARACTER OF PRAYERS. 209 

us life everlasting, preserve us, and accept this our 
sacrifice." 1 

In the voluminous specimens of Aztec prayers 
preserved by Sahagun, moral improvement, the " spi- 
ritual gift," is very rarely if at all the object desired. 
Health, harvests, propitious rains, release from pain, 
preservation from clangers, illness, and defeat, these 
are the almost unvarying themes. But here and there 
we catch a glimpse of something better, some dim 
sense of the divine beauty of suffering, some feeble 
glimmering of the grand truth so nobly expressed by 
the poet : — 

aus des Busens Tiefe stromt Gecleihn 
Der festen Diddling und entschlossner That. 
Nicht Schmerz ist Ungliick, Gliick niclit immer Freude ; 
Wer sein Geschick erftUlt, dem lacheln Tbeide. 

t£ Is it possible," says one of them, " that this scourge, 
this affliction, is sent to us not for our correction and 
improvement, but for our destruction and annihila- 
tion? O Merciful Lord, let this chastisement with 
which thou hast visited us, thy people, be as those 
which a father or mother inflicts on their children, not 
out of anger, but to the end that they may be free 
from follies and vices." Another formula, used when 
a chief was elected to some important position, reads : 
" 0 Lord, open his eyes and give him light, sharpen 
his ears and give him understanding, not that he may 

1 Geronimo de Ore, Symbolo Catholico Indiano, chap, ix., 
quoted by Ternaux-Compans. De Ore was a native of Peru and 
held the position of Professor of Theology in Cnzco in the latter 
half of the sixteenth century. He was a man of great erudition, 
and there need be no hesitation in accepting this extraordinary 
prayer as genuine. For his life and writings see Nic. Antonio, 
Bib. Hisp. J¥ova, torn. ii. p. 43. 



300 INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 



use them to his own advantage, but for the good of 
the people he rules. Lead him to know and to do 
thy will, let him be as a trumpet which sounds thy 
words. Keep him from the commission of injustice 
and oppression." 1 

At first, good and evil are identical with pleasure 
and pain, luck and ill-luck. " The good are good 
warriors and hunters," said a Pawnee chief, 2 which 
would also be the opinion of a wolf, if he could ex- 
press it. Gradually the eyes of the mind are opened, 
and it is perceived that "whom He loveth, He 
chastiseth," and physical give place to moral ideas of 
good and evil. Finally, as the idea of Grod rises more 
distinctly before the soul, as " the One by whom, in 
whom, and through whom all things are," evil is seen 
to be the negation, not the opposite of good, and itself 
" a porch oft opening on the sun." 

The influence of these religions on art, science, and 
social life, must also be weighed in estimating their 
value. 

Nearly all the remains of American plastic art, 
sculpture, and painting, were obviously designed for 
religious purposes. Idols of stone, wood, or baked 
clay, were found in every Indian tribe, without ex- 
ception, so far as I can judge; and in only a few di- 
rections do these arts seem to have been applied to 
secular purposes. The most ambitious attempts of 
architecture, it is plain, were inspired by religious 
fervor. The great pyramid of Cholula, the enormous 
mounds of the Mississippi valley, the elaborate edi- 
fices on artificial hills in Yucatan, were miniature 

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva EspaTia, lib. vi. caps. 1, 4. 

2 Morse, Rep. on the Ind. Tribes, App. p. 250. 



RELIGION AND ART. 301 

representations of the mountains hallowed by tradi- 
tion, the "Hill of Heaven," the peak on which their 
ancestors escaped in the flood, or that in the terrestrial 
paradise from which flow the rains. Their construc- 
tion took men away from war and the chase, encou- 
raged agriculture, peace, and a settled disposition, 
and fostered the love of property, of country, and of 
the gods. The priests were also close observers of 
nature, and were the first to discover its simpler 
laws. The Aztec sages were as devoted star-gazers 
as the Chaldeans, and their calendar bears unmis- 
takable marks of native growth, and of its original 
purpose to fix the annual festivals. Writing by 
means of pictures and symbols was cultivated chiefly 
for religious ends, and the word hieroglyph is a wit- y 
ness that the phonetic alphabet was discovered under 
the stimulus of the religious sentiment. Most of the 
aboriginal literature was composed and taught by 
the priests, and most of it refers to matters connected 
with their superstitions. As the gifts of votaries and 
the erection of temples enriched the sacerdotal order 
individually and collectively, the terrors of religion 
were lent to the secular arm to enforce the rights of 
property. Music, poetic, scenic, and historical reci- 
tations, formed parts of the ceremonies of the more 
civilized nations, and national unity was strengthened 
by a common shrine. An active barter in amulets, 
lucky stones, and charms, existed all over the conti- 
nent, to a much greater extent than we might think. 
As experience demonstrates that nothing so efficiently 
promotes civilization as' the free and peaceful inter- 
course of man with man, I lay particular stress on 
the common custom of making pilgrimages. 



302 



INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 



The temple on the island of Cozumel in Yucatan 
was visited every year by such multitudes from all 
parts of the peninsula, that roads, paved with cut 
stones, had been constructed from the neighboring 
shore to the principal cities of the interior. 1 Each 
village of the Muyscas is said to have had a beaten 
path to Lake Guatavita, so numerous were the de- 
votees who journeyed to the shrine there located. 2 
In Peru the temples of Pachacama, Eimac, and other 
famous gods, were repaired to by countless numbers 
from all parts of the realm, and from other provinces 
within a radius of three hundred leagues around. 
Houses of entertainment were established on all the 
principal roads, and near the temples, for their ac- 
commodation; and when they made known the 
object of their journey, they were allowed a safe 
passage even through an enemy's territory. 3 

The more carefully we study history, the more im- 
portant in our eyes will become the religious sense. 
It is almost the only faculty peculiar to man. It 
concerns him nearer than aught else. It is the key 
to his origin and destiny. As such it merits in all 
its developments the most earnest attention, an atten- 
tion we shall find well repaid in the clearer concep- 
tions we thus obtain of the forces which control the 
actions and fates of individuals and nations. 

1 Cogolludo, Hist, de YucatJian, lib. iv. cap. 9. Compare Ste- 
phens, Travs. in Yucatan, ii. p. 122, who describes the remains 
of these roads as they now exist. 

2 Eivero and Tschudi, Antigs. of Peru, p. 162. 

3 La Vega, Hist, des Incas, lib. vi. chap. 30 ; Xeres, Bel. de la 
Conq. du Perou, p. 151 ; Let. sur les Superstit. du Perou, p. 98, 
and others. 



INDEX. 



ABNAKIS, 174 
Acagchemem, a Californian 

tribe, 105 
Age of man in America, 35-37 
Ages of the world, 213 sq. 

Akakanet, 6 1 

Akanzas, 238 
Akenatzi, 284 
Algonkins, location, 26 
name of God, 58 n. 

mythical ancestors, 77 
veneration of birds, 103 
of serpents, 

108, 109, 113, 116 
myths and rites, 133, 136, 144, 
147, 151, 161, 174, 198, 209, 
220, 224, 236, 240, 244, 248, 
277, 297 

Aluberi, a name of God, 58 n. 

Anahuac, 29, 282 

Angont, a mythical serpent, 136 
Apalachian tribes, 27, 225 

Apocatequil, a Peruvian deity, 153 
Ararats, of America, 203 
Araucanians, 33 
name of God, 48, 61 

myths, 204, 248 

Arks, 255 
Arowacks, 58 n. 

Ataensic, an Iroquois deity, 

123, 131, 170 
Ataguju, or Atachuchu, 152 
Atatarho, mythical Iroquois 

chief, 118 
Athapascan tribes, 24 
myths, 104, 150, 195, 205, 229, 
248, 257 

Atl, an Aztec deity, 131 
Aurora borealis, 245 
Aymaras, 31, 34, 177 

Aztecs, their books and cha- 
racters, 10 
divisions, 29 



Aztecs — 

names of God, 48, 50, 58 n. 
government, 69 
rites, 72, 126, 127, 147 

calendar, 74 
worship of cross, 95 
names of cardinal points, 93 
worship of birds, 102, 106, 107 
of serpents, 111 
myths, 132, 133, 134, 138, 144, 
156, 171, 181, 205, 214 sq., 
227, 240, 246, 248, 252, 258 
priests, 282 
prayers, 292 

Aztlan, 181 

BACAB, Maya gods, 80 
Baptism, 125 seq. 

Bimini, 87 
Bird, symbol of, 

101 sq., 195 sq., 229, 254 
Blue, symbolic meaning of, 47 
Bochica, 183 
Boiuca, a mythical isle, 87 
Bones, preservation of, 255 
soul in' the, 257 
Botocudos, 123, 201 

Brasseur, Abbe, his works, 41 
Brazilian tribes, 102, 134, 250 

(See Tupis, Botocudos ) 
Busk, a Creek festival, 71, 96 

CADDOES, 93, 203 

Camaxtli, 158 
Cardinal points, adoration of, 67 sq. 

names of, 93 sq. 

Caribs, 32 

theory of lightning, 104, 114 

myths and rites, 

145, 184, 223, 237, 244, 256 

priests, 282 
Catequil. (See Apocatequil.) 
Centeotl, goddess of maize, 22, 134 



304 



INDEX. 



Chac, Maya gods, 80 
Chalchihuitlycue, an Aztec god, 123 
Chantico, an Aztec god, 138 
Cherokees, location, 25 
name of God, 51 
serpent myth, 115 
baptism, 128 
deluge, 205 
priests, 281 
Chia, goddess of Muyscas, 134 
Chichimec, 139 n., 158 

Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caves, 227 
Chicunoapa, the Aztec Styx, 249 
Chipeways, picture-writing, 10 
records, 17 
magicians, 71 
myths, 163, 168 

Choctaws, location, 27 
name of God, 51 
myths, 84 n., 225, 261 

priests, 281 
Cholula, 180, 181, 204, 228 

Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, 120 
Cihuapipilti, 246 
Circumcision, 147 
Citatli, 131 
Clairvoyance, 269 
Coatlicue, 118 
Colors, symbolism of, 

47, 80, 140, 165 
Con or Contici, 155, 176 

Coxcox, 202 
Craniology, American, 35 
Creation, myths of, 193 seq. 

Creeks, location, 27 
name of God, 50 
rites, 71, 96 

mythical ancestors, 77 
serpent myth, 115 
other myths, 137, 225, 242, 244 
priests, 273, 283 

Cross, symbolic meaning of, 

95-7, 183, 188 
ofPalenque, 118 
Cupay, the Quichua Pluto, 61, 251 
Cusic, his Iroquois legends, 63, 108 n. 

DAKOTAS, location, 28 
rites, 71 
language, 75 
mythical ancestors, 77 
myths, 62, 103, 133, 150, 237, 
259, 279 

Dawn, myths of, 166, 167, 175, 227 
Delawares, 140 n., 144 

(See Lenni Lenape.) 



Deluge, myth, origin, etc., 198-212 
Devil, idea of unknown to red 

race, 59, 251 

Divination, 278 
Dobayba, 123 
Dog, as a symbol, 137, 229, 247-9 
Dove, as a a symbol, 107 
Dualism, moral, not found in 

America, 59 
sexual not found, 146 

EAGLE, as a symbol, 104 
East, myths, concerning, 

91, 165, 174, 180 
(See Dawn.) 
Eastman, Mrs., her Legends of 

the Sioux, 103 
Eldorado, 87 
Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, 63- 
Epochs of nature, 200 seq. 

Esaugetuh Emissee, 50 
Eskimos, location, 23 
name of chief god, 50, 76 

term for south, 94 
veneration of birds, 101 
myths, 173 n., 193, 226, 229, 
241, 245, 261, 280 

FEAR in religion, 141, 292 

Fire-worship, 140 seq. 

Flood-myth. (See Deluge.) 
Florida, 87 
Forty, a sacred number, 94 
Fountain of youth, 129 
Four, the sacred number of red 
race, 66 sq., 105, 157, 167, 178, 
182, 184, 240 
Four brothers, the myth of, 

76-83, 152, 167, 178, 182 

GARONHIA, Iroquois deity, 48 
Gizhigooke, the day-maker, 169 
Guaranis, 32, 84 n. 

Guatavita Lake, 124 
Gucumatz, the bird-serpent, 118 
Gumongo, god of the Monquis, 93 

HAITIANS, myths of, 

78, 85, 135, 188 

Hand, symbol of the, 183 

Haokah, Dakota thunder god, 151 
Hawaneu. (See Neo.) 

Heaven, the, of the red race, 243 

Hell, the hidden world, 252 

Heno, Iroquois thunder-god, 156 

Hiawatha, myth of, 172 



INDEX. 



305 



Hobbamock, 60 
Huemac. the Strong-hand, 181, 183 
Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, 

118, 282 
Hunting, its effect on the mind, 

21, 67, 100 
Hurakan or hurricane, meaning 

of, 51 
a Maya god, 

81, 82, 114, 156, 196 

Huron s, 

25, 48, 114, 136, 169, 248, 250, 275 
Hushtoli, Choctaw name of God, 51 

ILLATICI, Quichua name of 

God, 55, 155 

Incas, secret language, 31 
official title, 69 
ancestors, 82, 153 

arms, 120 
sun-worship, 142 
myths, 188, 191, 244 

Ioskeha, supreme god of Iro- 
quois, 63, 170-2 
Iroquois, location, 25 
name of God, 48, 53 
myths of, 

83, 85, 169-72, 196, 227, 236 
veneration of serpents, 

108, 116, 118 
of fire, 148 
Isolation of the red race, 20, 34 
Itzcuinan, the Bitch-Mother, 138 

JARVIS, Dr., his Discourse 

on American Religions, 39 
Juripari, 61 

KILLISTENOES, 270 

Kittanitowit, 58, 60 

Ku, a name of divinity, 46, 47 

Kukulcan, god of air, 118 

LANGUAGES of America, 7 
esoteric of priests, 284 
Lenni Lenape, 26, 96, 161, 231 
Light, universal symbol of di- 
vinity, 173 
Lightning, the, 

112 seq., 151 seq., 168 

MADNESS, as inspiration, 

274 seq. 

Magic, natural, 266 
Maistre, Joseph de, his theory 
of mythology, 291, n. 

20 



22, 37 
222 sq., 258 
223 
228 



250 
87 
111 
13 
30 
74, 80 
80, 85 



221 
97 
201 
162 n. 
45 
267 
264, 277 seq. 



Maize, distribution of, 
Man, origin of, 

word for, 
Mandans, 71, 85, 107, 184, 205 
Manibozho. (See Michabo.) 
Mannacicas, 
Manoa, 
Maues, 

Mayas, alphabet, 
location, 
calendar, 

mythical ancestors, 79, 

myths and rites, 

93, 146, 183, 188, 214 

name of cross, 
Mbocobi, 
Meda worship, 
Medicine, 

lodge, 

men, 

Memory, cultivated by picture- 
writing, 18 
Mesmerism, 272 
Messou, 209 

(See Michabo.) 
Metempsychosis, 253 
Mexicans. (See Aztecs.) 
Meztli, 132, 135 

Michabo, supreme Algonkin god, 

63, 116, 136, 161-9, 198, 220, 294 
Mictlan, god of the dead, 92, 252 
Migrations, course of, 34 
Milky-way, 244 
Millennium, 261 
Minnetarees, 228, 230, 250 

Mixcoatl, or Mixcohuatl, 

22, 51, 158 

Mixtecas, 
Monan, 
Monquis, 
Montezuma, 
Moon, worship of, 
Moxos, 

Miiller, J. G., his work on 

American religions, 40, 59, 61 
Mummies, 
Muscogees, 

(See Creeks.) 
Muyscas, 31 
myths, 84 n., 183-4 

NAHUAS, 29, 73 

myths, 84 n., 118, 138, 158, 206 
(See Aztecs.) 
Nanahuatl, 135 
Natchez, 27, 28 n. 



90, 196 
211 

93, 106 
187, 190 
130 seq. 
124, 230 



257-60 
195 



306 



INDEX. 



Natchez — 

myths, 126, 142, 149, 

205, 225, 239 
Natural religions, 3 
Navajos, 79, 84 n., 103, 127, 205, 241 
Neo, Iroquois corruption of Dien, 53 
Nemqueteba, 183 
Netelas, 50, 105 n. 

Nez Perces 272, 281 

Nicaraguans, 145, 158, 201, 245, 288 
Nine Rivers, the, 248 
Nootka Indians, 297 
North, myths concerning, 82 
Nottoways, 25, 48 

Numbers, sacred, 66, 98 

(See Four, Three, Seven.) 

OCCANICHES, 284 

Oki, name of God, 46-8 
Onniont, a mythical serpent, 114 

Onondagas, 171 

Oonawleh unggi, 51 

Otomis, 6, 158 

Ottawas, 93, 145, 161 

Ottoes, 84 n. 

PACARI TAMPU, 82, 179, 227 
Pachacamac, 56, 176-7, 298 

Panos, 13 
Paradise, myth of, 86 seq. 

Paria, ' 87 
Passions, worship of, 146, 149 

Pawnees, 71 n., 84 n. 

Pend d'Oreilles, 233 
Peru, 69 
rites and myths, 82, 102, 106, 

131, 132, 137, 138, 142, 149, 

152 sq., 176-9, 188, 213, 219, 

227, 240, 251, 260 
priests, 278, 282, 284 

(See Aymaras, Incas.) 
Phallic worship, 146, 149 

Picture writing, 9 
Pilgrimages, custom of, 301 
Pimos, 185 
Prayers, specimens of, 296-300 
Priesthood, native, 263 sq. 

Puelches, 277 

QUETZALCOATL, the supreme 
Aztec god, 106, 118, 157, 

180-3, 188, 294-6 
Quiateot, a rain god, 131 
Quiches, 30 
Sacred Book, 41 
names for God, 51, 58 n. 



Quiches — 

evil deities, 64 

myth of first four brothers, 81 

of paradise, 89 

of creation, 196 

of flood, 207 

of hell, 251, 258 

Quichuas, 31 

religion, 55 

ancestors, 82, 1^3 
names of cardinal points, 93 n. 

myths, 155 

(See Peru, Incas.) 

Quipus, 14 

RATTLESNAKE, as a symbol, 

108 sq. 

Raven, as a symbol, 

195, 204, 213, 229 
Red, symbolic meaning, 80, 88, 140 

SACRIFICE, its meaning, 291 
Sacs, 84, 277 

Sanscrit flood-myth, 212 
Schwarz, Dr., his views of 

mythology, 112 
Seminoles, 129' 
Serpent, as a symbol, 

107 sq., 136, 158 
Seven, a sacred number, 66, 128 n., 
202, 204, 273 n., 281, 283 
Shawnees, 

26, 84 n., 110, 113,114,144, 281 
Shoshonees, 28, 138 

Sillam Innua, 50, 76 

Sioux, 28, 151, 236 

Soul, notions concerning, 

235 sq., 277 

Sua, the Muysca God, 184 
Sun-worship, 141 sq., 149, 243-9 
Suns, Aztec, 215 sq. 

TAKAHLIS, 127, 197, 201, 253, 256 
Tamu, 184, 294 

Taras, 158 
Taronhiawagon, 171 
Tawiscara, 170 
Teczistecatl, 132 
Teatihuacan, 46, 69 

Three, a sacred number, 66, 98, 156 
Thunder-storm, in myths, 150 sq. 
Tici, the, vase, 130 
Timberlake, Lt., his Memoirs, 115 
Titicaca, Lake, 124, 178 

Tlacatecolotl, supposed Aztec 
Satan, 106 



INDEX. 



307 



Tlaloc, god of rain, 75, 88. 156-7 
Tlalocan, 88, 246 

Tlapallan, 88, 91, 181 

Tloque nahuaque, 58 n. 

Tohil, 157 
Toltecs, 29, 180 

Tonacatepec, 88 
Toukaways, 231 
Trinity, in American religions, 156 
Tulan, 88, 89, 181 

Tupa, 32, 84, 152, 185 

Tupis, 32 
myths, 

83 n., 152 ,185, 210, 258, 274 
Twins, sacred to lightning, 153-4 

TJNKTAHE, a Dakota god, 133 

VASE, symbol of, 130, 155 

Viracocha, supreme god in Peru, 

124, 155, 177-80 

WAITZ, Dr., his Anthropology, 

40, 288 

"Wampum, 15 
Water, myths of, 122 seq., 194 



West, myths of, 92, 93, 166 

White, as a symbol, 165, 174-6 

Whiteman's land, 21 n. 
Winds, myths of, 

49-52, 74 sq., 96, 103, 166, 182 

Winnebagoes, 220 

Witchitas, 224 

Writing, modes of, 9-13 



XELHTJA, 
Xibalba, 
Xochiquetzal, 
Xolotl, 



228 
64, 251 
137 
258 



YAKAMA language, 50 
Tamo and Yarua, twin deities, 154 n. 
Yoalli-ehecatl, 50 
Yohualticitl, 132 
Yupanqui, Inca, 55 
Yurucares, 201, 224, 259 

ZAC, empire of, 31, 124 

Zamna, culture hero of Mayas, 

93, 183, 188 

Zapotecs, 183 



ERRATA. 

Page 31, note, for '■'■JJreinbexvohner^ read "Ureinwohner. 
" 101, line 10 from bottom, for "clouds" read "clods. 
" 145, note \,for " Gromara" read "Gumilla." 




J 

LEJL 'II 



